Flash Rave Goes Global
Enter Electro-Flash and the new rave craze
by Tasleem Ahmed
Think dance has had its day? Think again. In the last twelve months a new, and vibrant scene has emerged in east London, drawing on the underground music of Berlin and the outlaw parties of early nineties NYC club culture. By its very essence it defies the lack of innovation in the wider British electro scene, to strike out on its own free from the constraints of commerce. The artists involved deliberately resist releasing material - preferring live performance as a way of circumventing the record industry, despite a massive A&R scramble breaking loose amongst some of the major labels to scoop up the DJ producers and live acts who are making these fresh new sounds. They also refuse to give major interviews to the press. The aesthetic is undoubtedly punk, but the details are wholly different. Some are calling it a rave-o-lution. So far we've seen a DLR train turned into a 500 person mobile rave, a tesco metro transformed into a discotheque, primark's flagship store brought to its knees by ravers, and with the current fad for illegal techno parties in 24 hour launderettes all over London, it seems that a scene is born. Perhaps it came about as a reaction against the nostalgia culture of "nu-rave" or as part of the trend for 'pop up' shops in the aftermath of the great recession - but these parties are definitely thrown for the sheer fun of it. Many in the media are hailing this phenomenon ('Flash' as its known in the underground) as the best thing to happen to UK music since we got rid of the spice girls.
With electro-flash acts such as Douce Angoisse, Keysha Byte and outsider performance artists Vicky Gold and Alex Fear all going guerrilla, an area once reserved for retrograde rock acts like the libertines has been colonised by fun seeking optimistic kids with an electronic manifesto to dance wherever they please. It's a deliberate flouting of the rules that is reminiscent of the Situationists, although on the whole these kids don't come from art school backgrounds. It may be new generation rave but it also marks a return to the roots of the original counter culture in a way that seemed almost impossible 5 years ago.
If there is one person who can be credited with transposing the guerrilla gig into a dance music context, it's Private Lives front man - DJ and Singer Bryn Phillips. I meet the 28 year old round the corner from where he lives in Poplar, in a former gin palace. Now a run down pub on the east india dock road, its half empty but for a few friendly locals and was once a stopping off point for thirsty marchers during the Poplar rates rebellion.
Dressed in a lime pastel jacket with sleeves rolled up he's reminiscent of Kristian Slater in Beverley Hills 90210 and further evidence of the 1990s references that are taking hold in the London underground. He's wearing his trademark Primark bracelet too. I ask him how it came that he got involved with the scene?
"It was ultimately an act of nature" he says "we followed our instinct to dance and break rules. Sometimes we'd end up doing it in a warehouse with everybody else, but other times we found ourselves in the middle of a supermarket with a sound system. Obviously, the Supermarket wins every time" he deadpans.
"When i was 15 i used to go out to raves 5 days a week and take pills. I was a nightmare pill head. then I'd go home and my poor drug addled brain would go into fits of melancholy and I'd listen to The Smiths and Donna Summer whilst coming down. It just seemed natural to chuck the lot of it together and write songs that drew on all those ideas. We make sounds with whatever we can get our hands on, often stuff that established producers wouldn't use, and really that's how new sounds come about- cause emerging acts cant afford to buy an 808
One facet of this new scene is the fact that the music policy is strictly minimal techno, another influence seemingly drawn from Berlin. Characterized by a stripped-down aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition, this style of production generally sticks to the motto less is more; a principle that has been previously used in architecture, visual art, and the avant garde. Minimal techno is thought to have been originally developed in the early 1990s by Detroit based producers Robert Hood and Daniel Bell, although what is currently referred to as 'minimal' has largely been developed in Germany during the 2000s and made popular in the late noughties by labels like Kompakt and M-nus - although probably due to the 80s revival, it hasn't caught on here as widely until now.
Another interesting departure Flash is making from the established aesthetics of dance culture is in its poster art - with not a jot of neon to be found in sight. By printing Semacoded URLs on gray scale flyers (so as to avoid the prying eyes of the police) and principally using the De Stijl pallet of primary colours + black, white and grey, this is more than a nod to visual modernism and simultaneously takes flash mob technology off the net and onto the street. With more and more flash raves happening every weekend, if you keep your eyes peeled when your out and about, and listen on the facebook grapevine you're likely to find yourself joining one soon. For the extra committed - get a semacode app for your phone. Then all you need to do is find one of those posters with the funny barcode on that you've seen all over the place lately. Take a photo of it, then let technology do the rest. In seconds you'll know where the next flash rave will be. Amazing!
As a disgruntled customer who turned up to try and do their washing during a launderette rave the other day said, "The world's gone mad. You go down the launderette...and ITS A DISCO!". London, you'd best believe it.
More news as it comes
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