Ghosts of Sound

Here is another book about dance music that I read while researching the main protagonist for my graphic novel The Panharmonion Chronicles. It was written by Sheryl Garrat and published by TCL Publishing. Sheryl started writing for New Musical Express (NME) when she was still at school and later became editor of The Face magazine. NME and The Face became my main sources of pop culture information, when I first arrived in London in 1988. So, yeah, I must confess, reading her book about the emergence, then explosion of house music in the UK at the same time of my arrival, feels like a trip back to a future I never knew was going to be possible. 

Adventures in Wonderland is a must read for anyone who might have been part of that scene at the time, or for younger readers to discover what it was like. A time before mobile phone! When losing yourself in music was all about the beats, the strobes and the contagious feeling of love, peace and unity. A feeling that seems increasingly scarce in an increasingly disjointed human society, polarised and eroded by hubristic technocrats and their politician clients. 

Anyway, back to the book, which is possibly the most comprehensive account of the Club scene, birth and growth of electronic dance music in NYC, Chicago, Detroit, and its subsequent explosion in Ibiza, London, Manchester, and beyond. It is written in a very factual and relatable voice, filled with interviews, facts and trivia that add an authentic journalistic tone to the narration. To help the reader get a broader sense of this cultural movement in all its diversity, the book is structured in three parts: “Before”, “1988-90”, “After”. 

“Before” looks at the morphing of Disco into House Music through snapshots in Paris, London, New York and Ibiza, where we meet some of the early actors of the music and the dance. 

“1988-90” is the epicentre of the book, a deep dive into the London underground club scenes like Shoom on Tottenham Court Road, The Trip on Charing Cross Road, The Brixton Academy, and so on…There was money to be made and rivalries amongst promoters and DJs led to an explosion of venues and events. The “Summer of Love”, as I recall was mostly happening in London in basements and warehouses before becoming “orbital” moving out to the M25 and the fields beyond. The book as a substantial section on “Northern Soul”, the peculiar dance music spin-off born from the Manchester’s indie rock scene and centred on its legendary club The Hacienda. 

“After” starts, appropriately, with meeting The KLF, perhaps best remembered for their huge anthemic songs revolving around the ‘Justified and Ancient’ mythology of Mu Mu, before they called it a day and in a grand, post-modern punk gesture…destroyed their music catalogue and burned one million pounds cash on the island of Jura. This section of the book feels like the bittersweet ‘breakdown’ part of an EDM set, announcing that the party will soon be over. But still with the lingering hope that we might yet, get to dance another day. 

The conflation of hysterical tabloid media, hyper-commercialisation, over-reliance on chemical intake… led to the scene explosion and implosion, the birth of ‘super clubs’ and the fragmentation of the Acid-House musical form into the multitude of sub-genres that we have today. 

Incredibly rich in detail, this book is fun to read and loaded with information about the genesis of what today has morphed into a global phenomenon. For anyone who’s interested in counterculture, urban art, creativity … and related hustle or simply for anyone who’s forever young. If you were lucky enough to be there when it happened, you will love reminiscing…if you are too young to have lived it, read this and start your own Wonderland. Because the message is in the Music…and the Music is yours.

Adventures in Wonderland is widely available. First, support your local bookstore. Failing that, there is Amazon.