Energy Flash: A Journey through Rave Music and Dance Culture
Rating
The Pequod Review:
Energy Flash is a detailed but somewhat dry history of the 1980s and 1990s rave/EDM scene, beginning in New York, Detroit and Chicago, and later spreading to the UK. Simon Reynolds is an intelligent music journalist, with a deep knowledge of both the well-known and obscure musicians of the period. Some of the best sections explain how the drug MDMA (Ecstasy) was critical to both the development of rave culture and the structure of the music itself. (More usefully, Simon Reynolds maintains an excellent blog here.)