A night of discussion and dancing to celebrate the publication of Party Lines by Ed Gillett, a bold new social and political history of dance music, tracing its role in the making of modern Britain over the last 40 years.
āA fascinating deep diveā – Jeremy Deller
From the illicit reggae blues dances and acid-rock free festivals of the 1970s, through the ecstasy-fuelled Second Summer of Love in 1988, to the increasingly corporate dance music culture of the post-Covid era, Party Lines is a groundbreaking new history of UK dance music, exploring its pivotal role in the social, political and economic shifts on which modern Britain has been built.
Challenging popular narratives about the history of dance music, journalist and film- maker Ed Gillett explores a fifty-year struggle between the desire of young Britons to collectively lose and rediscover themselves on the dance floor, and the use of ever-expanding government and policing powers to control, monetize and stifle those radical impulses.
Ed Gillett will be appearing in conversation with raver and academic Julia Toppin, whose groundbreaking research into the hidden roles of women in jungle & drumānābass was published by Bloomsbury in 2022.
DJ sets from:
Outsider dance DJ and producerĀ Ambient Babestation MeltdownĀ (Rye Wax / Optimo Music) playing a classic selection of early ā90s breakbeat and hardcore.
Archival label and radio showĀ Death Is Not The EndĀ (NTS / ) exploring the sounds of UK pirate radio, as showcased on their recent London Pirate Radio Adverts 1984 – 1999 compilations.
DJ and producerĀ KlausĀ (1-800-Dinosaur, Tanum) joining the dots between soundsystem histories and contemporary club sounds.