Diy The L.a. Scene

For the last 20 years London-based author and party organiser Tim Lawrence has dedicated himself to excavating the history of New York City party culture and bringing some of the most powerful aspects of that culture to London’s dance scene, from where it has ricocheted around the world. Having conducted the first set of major interviews with David Mancuso, Lawrence started to put on Loft-style Lucky Cloud Sound System parties with David and friends in London in June 2003. In early 2004 he published Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79, which tracked the influence of the Loft on the wider New York DJ, dance and disco scene. In 2009 his biography of the iconic musician Arthur Russell became the first book to map the wider downtown music scene. These beautifully written and politically insightful histories have educated, inspired and celebrated the previously overlooked foundations of contemporary dance music.

The line dividing black gospel and so-called secular music has always been a thin one, and musicians have rarely been afraid to step over it. In the 1920s, the blind singer “Arizona” Juanita Dranes wed ragtime and boogie—rhythms associated with saloons and barrelhouses—to Holiness movement hymns. Later, Mahalia Jackson, who refused to record secular records, nonetheless achieved massive popularity outside the sanctified confines of the gospel scene. A true pioneer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe scandalized the church by performing in nightclubs, practically inventing rock & roll in the process. By the early 1970s, blockbuster Stax singles by the Staple Singers proved artists could exist comfortably in both worlds, or suggested that perhaps these distinct spheres actually overlapped.

Long overdue reissue of Berlin-based experimental new wave/post-punk outfit Sprung Aus Den Wolken's vital self-titled debut, remastering it from the original tapes and bundling it with extra material from the same period. RIYL Malaria!, Einstürzende Neubauten, Suicide or Tuxedomoon.

Long overdue reissue of Berlin-based experimental new wave/post-punk outfit Sprung Aus Den Wolken's vital self-titled debut, remastering it from the original tapes and bundling it with extra material from the same period. RIYL Malaria!, Einstürzende Neubauten, Suicide or Tuxedomoon.

Long overdue reissue of Berlin-based experimental new wave/post-punk outfit Sprung Aus Den Wolken's vital self-titled debut, remastering it from the original tapes and bundling it with extra material from the same period. RIYL Malaria!, Einstürzende Neubauten, Suicide or Tuxedomoon.