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Dancefloor-driven literature: subcultural big bangs and a new center for the aesthetic universe1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2016

Simon A. Morrison
Simon A. Morrison*
Affiliation:
109 Porter's Lodge, Warrington Campus, The University of Chester, Crab Lane Warrington Cheshire WA2 0DB E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper sets coordinates squarely for Holleran's ‘aesthetic center of the universe’ – venturing towards the black hole of the nightclub dancefloor. Further, it will investigate those writers determined to capture the electronic essence of this at times alien dance music culture within the rather more earth-bound parameters of the written word. How might such authors write about something so otherworldly as the nightclub scene? How might they write lucidly and fluidly about the rigid, metronomic beat of electronic music? What literary techniques might they deploy to accurately recount in fixed symbols the drifting, hallucinatory effects of a drug experience? In an attempt to address these questions this paper will offer an altogether outerspace overview of this subculture and its fictional literary output.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 36 , Special Issue 1: The Critical Imperative , January 2017 , pp. 43 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

1

In the spirit of musico-literary intermediality, please visit https:www.mixcloud.com/nhussey/life-after-zero-mixed/ and hit play, for a sonic soundtrack to accompany the reading of this paper.

References

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Personal communications

All quotes are from the following interviews unless stated otherwise:Google Scholar
Champion, Sarah, interviewed in person at The Leadstation, Chorlton, Manchester, 29 May 2013.Google Scholar
Miller, Trevor, interviewed in person at The Leadstation, Chorlton, Manchester, 2 August 2013.Google Scholar
Welsh, Irvine, interviewed via phone in Spring 2001; at Molly Malone's pub, Glasgow, 19 February 2012; and via phone, 23 February 2012.Google Scholar

Discography

A Guy Called Gerald. Trip City. Avernus, 1989.Google Scholar
‘Trip City’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIc-zAFIKw4 Google Scholar
‘Trip City Mambo’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSlkXtcEZwE Google Scholar
‘Valentine's Theme’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoCngvcCnrw.Google Scholar
Nick Hussey's ambient mix to accompany this soundtrack can be found at: https://www.mixcloud.com/nhussey/life-after-zero-mixed/ Google Scholar
For a useful discography of vocal samples from astronauts in trance and psytrance music forms please refer to St John (2014).Google Scholar

Filmography

Christopher, Nolan. Interstellar. USA: Paramount, 2014. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/>>Google Scholar