Rave It Up and Start Again: Simon Reynolds Revises Energy Flash

You’re probably aware of Skrillex by now. Even if you’ve not heard his aggressive, festival-baiting wobble (or indeed his baffling collaboration with The Doors), then you’ll have seen the much-circulated footage of him accidentally whacking his head on his oversized robot DJ booth, or the admittedly amusing GIF of his dancing, doctored to look as if he's being attacked by a huge cartoon bee. In fact, Skrillex himself resembles a sort of real life GIF for the EDM (electronic dance music) generation.

EDM – the big room, no-holds-barred sound of America, much derided by the real heads in the game – has become the focus of Simon Reynolds, the British-born music journalist who has just reissued his essential cultural history of rave, Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture, with an additional section on the phenomenon. Having himself witnessed the birth of acid house in the UK, but now residing with his family in LA, it’s fair to say that Reynolds is one of those real heads in the game – and then some. The book’s title is a nod to Joey Beltram’s seminal anthem of the same name, Reynolds’ favourite techno track of all time. He’s also known for Rip It Up and Retromania, two similarly thoughtful, not to mention weighty titles dealing in post-punk and nostalgia in popular culture respectively.

The rise and evolution of rave culture in the UK is a timeless story, documented in flawless detail throughout the book, but Reynolds has been most surprised by the dominance of dubstep in the past five years. “I don’t think anyone would have anticipated it,” he says. “You know, to find it now in Justin Bieber songs and Jay-Z records? Even Muse did dubstep. I never used to have a gung-ho opinion of the genre, I kind of liked it but I didn’t think it was the future, but in this new edition I’m able to rectify that.” 

Cutting (and grinding) his teeth in the late 80s and early 90s, circling the M25 looking for parties, Reynolds – one of jungle’s early champions in the press – remains characteristically curious regarding the US’s more commercial ideals. “I kind of like the nastier end of dubstep,” he admits. “It was a mass outbreak of a sort of constructive riot, people going crazy, wild behaviour, and the fact that brostep and EDM has that value gets me excited. I like the fact it’s creating this mass energy.” Mass energy is one term for its current effect on the American economy: the recent Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas drew 335,000 punters over one weekend. Its promoters are said to be investing in an EDM Disneyland, although apparently Belgium has beaten them to it.

While Reynolds is keen to document the past, as a “professional enthusiast” he feels a drive to always look towards the future. Energy Flash, though, contains perhaps more spirited recollections than any of his other work, and, it must be said, some touching portrayals of getting off his tits. Does he ever fall prey to the ghosts of music past? “Oh god yeah, I have multiple nostalgias!” he says. “There’s this whole period when I was a teenager and I was writing about bands like My Bloody Valentine, and there’s rave nostalgia, and I expect soon I’ll get the grime nostalgia... Whereas my family makes up much of my life, my career is my passion, and you can’t really expect to maintain the same level of intensity over long periods. There will be ups and downs.”

With nearly a quarter of a century of first-hand knowledge of dance music behind him, Reynolds, unlike many other genre aficionados, is keen to let popular culture simply unfold. “I tend to find that the real sort of taste police are the people who hold music back, and it’s the great unwashed ignorant masses who tend to push things on,” he says. The question of whether the future lies with dubstep, techno, post-dubstep, nu-disco or any other genre offers little to faze him. “I think what’s missing from writing is stuff about the sort of initiation on the dancefloor, and just the shared experience of it,” he adds. The new edition of Energy Flash offers a distinctive and open-minded perspective on what’s happening on the world’s dancefloors. Best of all, it’ll likely leave you wishing you were right in the middle of one.