Kate Spicer
Dance music is bursting with new promise – and entering an “intensely creative period”, according to Craig Richards at Fabric – so it’s time to get up to date with its hottest gods and grooviest movements. Abandon thoughts of ageing superstar DJs, cheesy ravers and glowsticks – embrace, instead, three big new styles and hundreds of nimble DJs you would be a fool not to be name-checking as the party-season dancefloors fill up.
ELECTRO/ROCK’N’RAVE
What Filthy, head-banging party music. Mixing rock, pop and dance, and harking back to the Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk, acts such as Justice are about to force it out of the underground. Not just for purists, the scene is growing fast out of Paris, New York and London, and is closely linked to high fashion and young hip fame kids. A musical mash-up that’s also about people, noise and pure ironic novelty, it combines the boozy, instant rock’n’roll energy of the Ramones with the euphoria of raving. Amazing nobody thought of it before.
Who Soulwax, Battles, Justice, Mstrkrft, Blamma! Blamma!, Hannah Holland, Surkin, Midnight Juggernauts, Kissy Sell Out (see below), Boys Noize, Hervé and Sinden, on labels such as Ed Banger, Krank, Tigersushi, Institute and Modular.
Where Durrr and Bugged Out! at the End, All You Can Eat at Sin and Bloggers Delight at the Lock Tavern in London, Art of Parties in Glasgow, and, in Paris, Fluokids at Panik and the Ed Banger iPod battles.
DUBSTEP
What An underground urban movement that has grown out of Croydon’s garage scene. Now enjoying a strong foothold across the UK and in pockets of America – Baltimore, Texas, New York and San Francisco – dubstep is a mixture of garage, drum’n’bass and dub reggae, with deep, moody vibes and a heavy, skunk-inspired dub sound that can be so dark and stripped-back, it’s disquieting. It shares much with the grime scene that gave us Dizzee Rascal, and is not an environment for euphoria-induced cuddling; instead, think lots of blokes in cool anoraks, heads-down dancing and plenty of nodding.
Who Burial, Shackleton, Kode9, Digital Mystikz, Daddy G, Skream, Pinch and Plastician, on labels such as Burial, Planet Mu, Soulja, Hyperdub, Shelflife, Texture and Skull Disco.
Where At Fabric and Forward at Plastic People in London, Instrumental in Croydon and Subdub in Leeds, Dub Assembly in Dallas and Smog in LA. You can also catch it on the pirate station Rinse FM.
MINIMAL/TECH HOUSE
What House music stripped down to the purest technology, with techno and drum’n’bass aspects thrown in. This almost ghostly, pared-down sound has been around for a while, but it’s now having a global moment. People say it’s the gaps in the music that make it. Great for getting high (legally or otherwise) and for marathon dancing sessions, it has always sounded overwhelmingly good in a club, but recent work by more musical artists such as Booka Shade and Dinky (see left) have made it a possibility at home as well.
Who Dinky, Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano, Craig Richards, Richie Hawtin, Deadbeat, Baby Ford, Magda, Damian Lazarus, Mathew Jonson, Robert Hood (the don) and Booka Shade, on labels such as Minus, Underline, Perlon, Crosstown Rebels, Playhouse and Kompakt.
Where At Fabric, Public Life and Secretsundaze at Canvas in London, Mulletover parties, Cocoon at Amnesia, anything at DC10 in Ibiza, Robots in New York, Kontrol in San Francisco. But really, this scene is all about Berlin: check out Panoramabar.
Three to watch
KISSY SELL OUT
“I’m the guy that rewinds and stops the music all the time, and uses the air horn. DJing is about entertainment,” says Kissy, a 22-year-old Essex boy done good. Otherwise known as Tommy Bisdee, Kissy’s big break came when he pressed 100 vinyl copies of his single, Her, himself, and caught the bus to London; a few hours later, Rough Trade had taken the lot. Now the crown prince of UK electro-dance music, he has a monthly slot on Radio 1.
DINKY
An elegant Chilean dance-music evangelist, Dinky – real name Alejandra Iglesias – is a visceral, intelligent 32-year-old who has been playing to crowds of 3,000 or more since she was 21. A passionate instrumentalist who is learning to play the theremin [an early-20th-century electronic instrument], she is injecting minimal dance with a new femininity.
JUSTICE
Drool over main man Gaspard Augé’s luscious handlebar ’tache, then go crazy on the dancefloor to their thrilling party-starting tunes. Justice – the jewel in the crown of the Parisian label Ed Banger – are following in the footsteps of the original French wave of Air, Daft Punk and Motorbass. “Techno purists hate us,” Augé says. “But that’s not what we’re trying to be. We’re trying to bring the pop element back into electronic.