Had a really stimulating conversation with Emilie Friedlander and Andrea Domanick for their podcast The Culture Journalist - chatting about the intersection of music and science fiction, future-pop versus retro-futurism, the eternal returns of phuture-phorward rave styles like gabber and jungle as new generations discover and reinvent them, and much more besides.
It's also available at Spotify
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I had a great chat with Paul Rose - a/k/a Scuba a/k/a the man behind Hotflush Recordings - for his Not A Diving Podcast. We talked about Futuromania, electronic dance music, back in the day blogging, and much more besides. Immerse.
I'll be making a guest appearance at the Sci-Fi Short Story Club, discussing "The Sound-Sweep" - one of a couple of acutely imaginative tales involving music of the future dreamed up by J.G. Ballard.
The event, hosted by Los Angeles Public Library, is loosely tied to Futuromania - which features a extended essay about the ways in which science fiction writers have grappled with the challenge of imagining the future forms and functions of music. So in addition to "The Sound-Sweep" and Ballard's work, the discussion will encompass the broader subject of the interface between s.f. + music
The book club meets by Zoom, so I can see no reason why - beyond issues of time zone differences - someone who doesn't live in LA could attend, if they fancied.
This free event takes place at 6 pm PDT, on Wednesday July 17th.
Reading J.G.'s 1960 story in advance is helpful if you wish to participate in the discussion, but not essential.
Two upcoming Futuromania events
Brighton, Thursday 20th June
Dead Wax Social - 18 A Bond Street
Hosted by Resident
Doors open 7pm / event starts 7.30 pm
In conversation with Fiona Sturges
+ book signing.
London, Sunday 23rd June
Rough Trade West 130 Talbot Rd, W11
Event starts 3pm
In conversation with Günseli Yalcinkaya (Dazed)
+ book signing
Had a great in-depth chat with Melbourne's Charlie Miller for his 3RRR FM show Frantic Items, which airs later today (meaning Sunday, since Australia is already in the future - 6pm local time)
Update: the show is archived here.
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Had a really good chat with Günseli Yalcinkaya for Dazed magazine addressing "the anti-humanist tone" versus the quirky all-too-human individuals and desires that animate machine music, and much much more besides.
A kind of rehearsal for our conversation at Rough Trade East on Sunday June 23 (6pm)
I had a great chat with Chal Ravens and Tom Lea for their new-ish podcast No Tags - talking about Futuromania and touching on topics including science fiction, the rhetorics of temporality, smart drinks, the manifesto mode, speeding up and slowing down music, "the cartoon continuum", amapiano, my next book, and a favorite film.
Check out their archive which includes conversations with vibes-ologist Dr Robin James, rap critic Jeff Weiss, and dancehall expert Marvin Sparks talking about Vybz Cartel.
Check out this radio show about Futuromania I pulled together for NTS - also available at Soundcloud and Mixcloud.
Here's an interview I did with Metal magazine's Lainie Wallace about the book.
Here's a chat I had with Moonbuilding's Neil Mason.
And here's a conversation with Bill Proctor for his electro-history podcast Spacelab
Watch this space for news about more podcast appearances, webzine and radio interviews, and upcoming events.
US edition out May 7 via Hachette
Futuromaniac playlists - Spotify - Spotify (long mix) - Tidal (longest mix)
About the book:
Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines & Tomorrow's Music Today is a celebration of music that feels like a taste of tomorrow. Sounds that prefigure pop music’s future - the vanguard genres and heroic innovators whose discoveries eventually get accepted by the wider mass audience. But it’s also about the way music can stir anticipation for a thrillingly transformed world just around the corner: a future that might be utopian or dystopian, but at least will be radically changed and exhilaratingly other.
Futuromania shapes over two-dozen essays and interviews into a chronological narrative of machine-music from the 1970s to now. The book explores the interface between pop music and science fiction’s utopian dreams and nightmare visions, always emphasizing the quirky human individuals abusing the technology as much as the era-defining advances in electronic hardware and digital software.
Futuromania is an enthused listening guide that will propel readers towards adventures in sound. There is a lifetime of electronic listening here.
My ninth book is out in a couple of weeks time!
Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines & Tomorrow's Music Today is a themed collection about music and the future, looking at the intersection between science fiction and pop, and exploring "the rhetorics of temporality."
release rationale:
Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines & Tomorrow's Music Today is a celebration of music that feels like a taste of tomorrow. Sounds that prefigure pop music’s future - the vanguard genres and heroic innovators whose discoveries eventually get accepted by the wider mass audience. But it’s also about the way music can stir anticipation for a thrillingly transformed world just around the corner: a future that might be utopian or dystopian, but at least will be radically changed and exhilaratingly other.
Futuromania shapes over two-dozen essays and interviews into a chronological narrative of machine-music from the 1970s to now. The book explores the interface between pop music and science fiction’s utopian dreams and nightmare visions, always emphasizing the quirky human individuals abusing the technology as much as the era-defining advances in electronic hardware and digital software.
A tapestry of the scenes and subcultures that have proliferated in that febrile, sexy and contested space where man meets machine, Futuromania is an enthused listening guide that will propel readers towards adventures in sound. There is a lifetime of electronic listening here.
UK edition 11 April 2024 via White Rabbit
Via select record stores, the first five hundred copies come with a freezine with bonus pieces
US edition on Hachette out on May 7.
For a flavor of futuromaniac music, try these playlists
Quick tour of future pop - Spotify
Extended odyssey into the future frontier - Spotify, Tidal
Finally, I've started a blog (yet another blog!) dedicated to the book: Futuromania, which will initially be a place for news about Futoromania appearances on podcasts and in the media, interviews, and events, and then later will develop into a repository for all the "future music"-related writings I've done over the years that didn't make it into this volume.
Excited to announce the publication of two books in translation!
On November 16th, Audimat publish Le choc du glam, the French version of Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, translated by Hervé Loncan. More information here.
On November 19th, Minimum Fax publish Futuromania, a collection of my writing about electronic music (dance + non-dance), translated into Italian by Michele Piumini. More information here.
