New Books

phatmedia presents UK Rave Flyers 1988–1989 is a deluxe book showcasing original flyers from the breakthrough years of UK acid house. Sourced from the phatmedia archive and beyond, it captures the raw energy of a scene that exploded from underground parties into a nationwide movement. Featuring high-quality reproductions of flyers promoting warehouse raves, club nights and early promoters, the book highlights the DIY creativity and bold visual style that defined the era. It’s a visual journey through the scene’s formative years, with the narrative led by the flyers themselves, interspersed with quotes from DJs, designers, promoters and ravers. This commentary offers cultural context, making this an essential document of one of the most radical and influential moments in British youth culture. TUK Rave Flyers 1988–1989 is A4 (30cm x 21cm), and the 300 pages are printed on premium heavyweight paper.

New from Velocity Press - second edition of Nick Sadler's The Label MachinePublisher's info:Whether you’re launching a record label or taking your music career into your own hands, the second edition of The Label Machine gives you a complete system. It combines timeless industry knowledge with fresh insights into today’s fast-changing landscape, including the use of AI, new licensing models, and current marketing strategies that actually work. With the addition of the 360° Music System, artists will learn how to treat their careers like a business, unlocking long-term fanbase growth, recurring income streams, and professional-level releases. From mastering contracts to automating marketing funnels, it provides the strategy and execution roadmap that the industry never hands you. If you’re serious about music as a business, The Label Machine is your playbook.

What is hardcore? It means many things to many people, and they’re all correct. It’s best described as a feeling, an attitude, a way of life. Dance or Die is the first critical study of city-based hard dance communities spanning three decades of musical reinvention mapped to sweeping gentrification, political intervention and seismic societal change. From its 1990 Frankfurt techno genesis, hardcore has shattered into a myriad subgenres and discrete club tribes, but the core of hardcore has always stood for marginalised people worldwide finding family and acceptance in extremis, and in extreme sounds. Featuring exclusive archive materials and personal anecdotes from veteran Godfathers and contemporary stars of the digital diaspora, paired with voices from trans trailblazers and heroines behind the scenes, Dance or Die is the queer, activistic, and flawed history of hardcore that has never been fully told before.

On September 18, 2016, Keith Robinson, a pioneering figure in the free party scene, tragically lost his life in the River Thames. To say Keith lived an eventful life would be an understatement. In 2011 he started writing his autobiography and involvement with the Desert Storm Sound System but never completed it. It’s taken this long – and lots of hurdles to overcome – to bring Keith’s story to the world. Take No Prisoners: The Desert Storm Sound System Story covers his childhood and first forays into parties (and brushes with the law) in Glasgow, the infamous trips to Bosnia during the Balkans conflict, the anti-Criminal Justice Bill and Reclaim The Streets demos in Trafalgar Square, joining the army and serving in Afghanistan. The book also contains many photos from Keith’s life, a foreword by Matthew Collin (author of Dream Machines, Rave On and Altered State) and an epilogue written by Ray Philp (Red Bull Music Academy).

Revised reissue of the acclaimed first-ever book-length investigation into the origins of jungle and drum & bass. Back in print for the first time since 1998, State of Bass: The Origins of Jungle and Drum & Bass features previously unpublished interviews with Roni Size, Goldie, LTJ Bukem, Fabio, Shy FX and other key players from the early years of the scene.

Written by Spiral Tribe’s co-founder and visual artist, Mark Angelo Harrison, A Darker Electricity charts the infamous sound system’s nomadic journey and the rapid escalation of their popularity – and notoriety. From small squat-scene parties in early 90s London to enormous warehouse raves and free festivals. The undercover police operation against them. The record deal with Youth. The creation of their community recording studio. The government stitch-up and their prosecution. The escape to Europe and the start of the teknival scene. _______________________________ At the time, it was unclear why the UK government targeted the Spiral Tribe travelling sound system. Even after arresting many key members and launching one of Britain’s biggest court cases against them. Was it really because they were a marauding horde of anarcho-techno-pirates, their outlandish music calling a generation to rise up in rebellion against conservatism, convention, and even consensus reality? Or was it because, as pioneers of the 1990s free party movement, championing the new British breakbeat and European techno sound, they were reclaiming social space in warehouses and out under the stars? Each weekend they pulled ever bigger crowds away from consumer culture. No superstar DJs, no door policy and everyone dancing together as equals. An inspiring, unifying force of creativity. As Spiral Tribe’s co-founder and visual artist (or as the Crown Prosecutor described him, ‘the criminal ringleader’ who’d helped ‘mastermind’ Britain’s ‘biggest ever illegal rave’ at Castlemorton), Mark Angelo Harrison has a unique perspective to tell their inside story. He vividly charts their nomadic journey and the rapid escalation of their popularity – and notoriety. From small squat-scene parties in London to enormous warehouse raves and free festivals. From one little overloaded van to the mighty convoy of matt-black military vehicles that instigated the teknivals of Europe.  

Written by Harry Harrison, one of DiY’s founding members, Dreaming in Yellow traces their origins back to early formative experiences, describing in detail the seminal clubs, parties, festivals and records that forged the collective. Dreaming in Yellow is an attempt to distil the story of DiY’s tumultuous existence and the remarkably eclectic, outrageous and occasionally deranged story of them doing it themselves.

1994 was a year of fervent resistance against the encroaching Criminal Justice Act in the UK. Amidst the clamour of dissent, three historic demonstrations echoed through the streets of London, challenging the very fabric of authority and transforming the nature of peaceful protest, forever. Through the lens of Matt Smith (Exist To Resist), witness the raw energy and unity of the protests that shook the capital. Each image in this zine is a testament to the power of the people, capturing not just moments frozen in time, but the spirit of a generation refusing to accept oppressive legislation. Pages: 68 Size: A5 (21cm x 14.8cm) Binding: Staple bound Print: Black & white Front cover design: Tom Booth Woodger, Interior design: Jez Tucker

John Holloway's previous book, Change the World Without Taking Power, sparked a world-wide debate among activists and scholars about the most effective methods of going beyond capitalism. Now Holloway rejects the idea of a disconnected array of struggles and finds a unifying contradiction - the opposition between the capitalist labour we undertake in our jobs and the drive towards doing what we consider necessary or desirable. Clearly and accessibly presented in the form of 33 theses, Crack Capitalism is set to reopen the debate among radical scholars and activists seeking to break capitalism now.   John Holloway is a Professor in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico. His publications include Crack Capitalism (Pluto, 2010), Change the World Without Taking Power (Pluto, 2005), Zapatista! Rethinking Revolution in Mexico(co-editor, Pluto, 1998) and Global Capital, National State and The Politics of Money (co-editor, 1994).

One of THE central books of Western Marxism!English language edition published by Merlin.

BACK IN STOCK!  Now also available for wholesale for shops! Movements that dig velocity. Movements that worship war. Movements that have been accused of being fascist. Sbrang Gabba Gang is the sound of two cultural movements violently crashing into each other at breakneck speed. What happens when the Italian futurist avant-garde clashes with gabber, a belligerent strain of hardcore techno and the Netherland's first proper youth culture? Sbrang Gabba Gang will introduce you to the strange custom of forming human pyramids at gabber raves, futurist after-shave cocktails and Pietro Cannata, the man who took a hammer to the toes of Michelangelo's David. In Sbrang Gabba Gang, Riccardo Balli explores the parallels of gabber and futurist ideas by way of personal accounts, literary mash-up of Futurist manifestos and a storyline that follows the vandalistic shenanigans of a posse of gabber-futurists consisting of Dominator Marinetti, Luigi "Holy Noise" Russolo, Luciano "Thunderdome" Folgore and Giacomo Balla/Balli. These ideas further come to life in a series of anaglyphic images to be explored with special magenta-green 3D glasses attached to each volume.

Although the Vietnam War is still well known, few people are aware of the decades of struggles against the French colonial regime that preceded it, many of which had no connection with the Stalinists (Ho Chi Minh's Communist Party). The Stalinists were ultimately victorious, but only because they systematically destroyed all the other oppositional currents.This book is the story of those other movements and revolts, caught in the crossfire between the French and the Stalinists, told by one of the few survivors. Author Ngo Van's In the Crossfire is one of those rare books like Voline's The Unknown Revolution or Orwell's Homage to Catalonia that almost singlehandedly unveils moments of hidden history - sublime moments when people break through the bounds of the "possible" and strive to create a life worthy of their deepest dreams and aspirations. In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary is an English translation of Ngo Van's fascinating and gripping autobiography, originally published in two volumes in France in 2000 and 2005. Co-edited by Van's close friend and collaborator, Hélène Fleury, and acclaimed situationist author and translator Ken Knabb, the book includes seventy color and black and white illustrations, reproducing many of Van's paintings as well as numerous documentary photographs. In the Crossfire belongs on the shelf of every serious scholar of Vietnamese history, and is sure to be a compelling read for anyone interested in the revolutionary history of the twentieth century and beyond.Ngo Van was born in a peasant village in Vietnam in 1912. As a young man he moved to Saigon and became involved in underground struggles against the French colonial regime. In the aftermath of World War II, as most of his comrades were being murdered by Ho Chi Minh's Communist Party, Van escaped to France, where he became a factory worker, a painter, and a historical scholar. Following his retirement in 1978, he devoted the remainder of his life to researching and writing a series of books on the history of modern Vietnam. He died in 2005 at the age of 92. Edited by Ken Knabb and Helene Fleury, published by AK Press, 2010. Product Code: 9781849350136

Essential text by Pannekoek, a classic critique of Lenin, written in 1938.

Finally in English, released by Chili Con Carne in Portugal! 1818 First edition of Mary Shelley’s classic: Frankenstein 2018 Frankenstein gone mad: the many horrifying uses of technology, such as Web 2.0 that encourages you to give your time and personal information up to faceless IT companies or worse…This book is a mashup of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, videogames and Internet culture, of chiptune music, galvinism, taffelmuzik, real life accounts of ’90s gabber rave parties in Italy and a celebration of Bologna’s finest weirdo label SONIC BELLIGERANZA, whose 17 years of existence (2000-2017) this volume celebrates with 17 texts. All written by Riccardo Balli who, having whistled countless 8-bit versions of famous pop songs and delighted his ears with chip-tune covers of black metal songs and classical music, now extends micro-music aesthetics to literature with this remix of Mary Shelley’s classic. Through some sort of low-resolution séance, the author evokes the spirit of corpse reviver Giovanni Aldini (1762-1834), credited with having inspired The Modern Prometheus. Aldini tells a compressed version of the original Frankenstein story, exposing its language to retro-gaming jargon and simplifying the plot as if it were an arcade game. The aforementioned 18th-century electrifier was the nephew of eminent scientist Luigi Galvani, who lived in MIDIevil Bologna just like the author of this new classic. Send him an impulse from your Game-Boy!BLEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Fascism is not a thing of the past. In this era of crisis and austerity, it is growing even stronger. The question is: How do we stop it? According to M. Testa, the fight against it must be aggressive and unrelenting. Using a mixture of orthodox history, eyewitness accounts, and unflinching analysis, he makes the case for a resolutely militant anti-fascism, one that gives no quarter and tolerates no excuses. Unlike other partisan accounts of contemporary battles against fascism and ultra-nationalism, Militant Anti-Fascism takes us from proto-fascists in nineteenth-century Austria to modern-day street-fights in London, providing a broad context for its arguments and looking at numerous countries over a longer period of time. The result is both a serious historical study and a story of victory and struggle, past and present, designed to inspire and energise militants. Lay aside, as Testa does, your faith in liberal, legislative, and state-approved approaches to today’s fascist threat. Start by reading this provocative and unapologetic overview of militant anti-fascism and the strategies that have successfully confronted the far right when it has reappeared in its many guises. Malatesta, undercover anti-fascist blogger, has analyzed the changing fortunes of the British far right since 2009. He has written for the anarchist magazine Freedom and is a member of the Anti-Fascist Network. 

A profound critic of electoral party politics and trade union hierarchy, Joseph Edwards was among the most proletarian theorists of his generation. His pamphlets, written in the 1970s and ’80s, survey attempts to organize workers in banana and sugar cane fields, bauxite mines, clerical offices, and industrial factories. His writings are animated by a Rastafarian-influenced philosophy of history and direct democratic politics that emphasize the role of workers’ and village councils in Caribbean class struggle. The first published collection of writings by Joseph Edwards, Workers Self-Management in the Caribbean transforms how we understand class struggle during Caribbean New Left generation. 

Original edition from 1990. NEW A selection of original documents from the period - from first hand accounts of the revolution: the collectives in town, country, industry, public services and agriculture; reports on meetings and demonstrations, to reports verbatim of speeches made by the CNT 'luminaries' justifying their compromises in accepting government posts.

The Chinese Revolution changed the face of the twentieth century, and the politics that issued from it—often referred to as “Maoism”—resonated with colonized and oppressed people from the 1970s down to the anticapitalist movements of today. But how did these politics first emerge? And what do they offer activists today, who seek to transform capitalist society at its very foundations? Maoism and the Chinese Revolution offers the novice reader a sweeping overview of five decades of Maoist revolutionary history. It covers the early years of the Chinese Communist Party, through decades of guerrilla warfare and rapid industrialization, to the massive upheavals of the Cultural Revolution. It traces the development of Mao Zedong’s military and political strategy, philosophy, and statecraft amid the growing contradictions of the Chinese revolutionary project. All the while, it maintains a perspective sympathetic to the everyday workers and peasants who lived under the party regime, and who in some moments stood poised to make the revolution anew. From the ongoing “people’s wars” in the Global South, to the radical lineages of many black, Latino, and Asian revolutionaries in the Global North, Maoist politics continue to resonate today. As a new generation of activists take to the streets, this book offers a critical review of our past in order to better transform the future. Praise: “In Maoism and the Chinese Revolution, Elliott Liu provides a dual service: first, he offers a critical history of Maoism that is both comprehensive and concise; second, he teases out the main lessons of that history and poses the question of how and what we are to learn from it. It is an auspicious beginning to a badly needed debate.”—André Moncourt, coauthor of The Red Army Faction: A Documentary History “How did a great revolution, carried out under the red flag and led by people who claimed, and believed themselves, to be communists, give rise to a monster slave state that may prolong the life of the capitalist system globally? By presenting information about events in China and engaging seriously with Mao Zedong as philosopher and strategist, Elliott Liu shows that the outcome did not result from the triumph of Mao’s ‘capitalist road’ opponents within the bureaucracy but was inherent in a project that sought to transform China into a capitalist society without relying on the traditional bourgeoisie. Liu has contributed to the discussion of what, if anything, in the Maoist tradition can be useful to those seeking to build a new society.”—Noel Ignatiev, author of How the Irish Became White About the Author: Elliott Liu is a political organizer in New York City. He works with the group Take Back The Bronx, and the Bronx Social Center. Product Details: Author: Elliott Liu Publisher: PM Press/Revolutionary Pocketbooks ISBN: 978-1-62963-137-0Published: 06/01/2016Format: PaperbackSize: 8x5Page count: 160Subjects: Political Theory/History-China

Anti-Wall – Contribution to a more or less caput comprehension of SurrealismMystić Constructions & The Boring One, Surrealist Publications, Belgrade, 1932Poetic translation and transduction: Howard Slater, London/Novi Sad, 2017 Anti-Wall has come together as one of many steps in kuda.org and GKP collaboration with Howard Slater over recent years. This latest co-operation saw us coming together around a mutual interest in the manifestations of the Surrealist movement both locally and world-wide. Anti-Wall, then, operates as a conjunction point (‘communicating vessel’) between the Belgrade Surrealist Group and those in the Antilles that came together around the journals Legitimate Defence and Tropiques. It also became a means of investigating political, affective and art organisations, then, here and now:Infra- and OurOrganization, politics as thought, distance from the State and political parties are just some of common themes embedded into the poetic and experimental transduction of Anti-Wall, originally published by Surrealist Publications, Belgrade in 1932 (by Marko Ristić & Vane Bor). This book, we hope, will help us get over our own walls.

Guy Debord (1931-1994) was the leading light in the Situationist International. He and the group were the first to criticize and comment on the role of the consumer in Western society. If Dada was an artistic movement that somehow pushed its artistic values into the political arena, then the Situationists were political and urban theorists who transformed politics into an art form. Debord’s masterpiece "Society of the Spectacle" is a stunning and witty critique on contemporary society where the workweek and consumerism alienate the individual. "Considerations on the Assassination of Gerard Lebovici" is a book-length rant and a confrontational stance against the French media with regards to the murder of his good friend and financial supporter Gerard Lebovici. In 1984 Lebovici was called away from an appointment and three days later the police found his body behind the steering wheel of his Renault with four bullet wounds to the back of his head, in a vacant parking lot in Paris. Lebovici was an inventive businessman, movie producer, publisher, and a major financial supporter of Situationist activity -including ownership of a movie theater that screened the films of Debord and other Situationists. It's suspected that gangsters killed Lebovici, although to this day the murderer(s) have never been found. That didn't stop certain groups in the media connecting Lebovici's death with the Situationists. In this passionate rebuttal, Debord lashes out with great humor and intensity against the media and defends his good friend Gerard Lebovici. This book should not be seen as an account of an isolated, almost forgotten murder case, but as a general call-to-arms with respect to how the media controls and rewrites its ‘facts’.

Guy Debord (1931-1994) was the most influential member of the Situationist International, the avant-garde group that triggered the May 1968 revolt in France. His book The Society of the Spectacle is by some considered the most important theoretical book of the twentieth century. But while Debord's written work is some of the most notorious in the world of political and cultural radicality, deemed "the cornerstone cliché of postmodernism," his films have until now remained tantalizingly inaccessible. After being withdrawn from circulation for nearly two decades (by Debord himself, to call attention to the 1984 assassination of the producer of the films, Gerard Lebovici), all six films were featured in a special "Guy Debord Retrospective" at the 2001 Venice Film Festival and re-released in France in 2002. The most famous of the films is Debord's cinematic adaptation of his own book, The Society of the Spectacle. As passages from the book are read in voiceover the text is illuminated, via direct illustration or various types of ironic contrast, by clips from Russian and Hollywood features (Potemkin, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Johnny Guitar, etc.), TV commercials, softcore porn, newsreels, and documentary footage. Some of the other films evoke Debord's adventures in the bohemian underworld of Paris during the 1950s, and in others Debord attacks the film medium itself, directly challenging the viewer by critiquing the traditional separation of spectacle and spectator. Ken Knabb's translation of Debord's Complete Cinematic Works accompanies the long-awaited English versions of these film.The scripts are illustrated with 62 stills, and Debord's own annotations help elucidate the subtleties of these astonishing works, which are like nothing else in cinema history. Paperback edition. AK Press, ISBN 1-902593-83-9

Important book by council communist Paul Mattick!

Cedrik Fermont & Dimitri Della Faille: Not Your World Music - Noise in South East Asia {second edition without CD, and at half the price!} A groundbreaking book about noise music in South East AsiaArt, Politics, Identity, Gender and Global Capitalism Written and edited by Cedrik Fermont and Dimitri della Faille.  This book is the FIRST MAJOR PUBLICATION on noise, electroacoustic,industrial, experimental music and sound art in the ASEAN countries (including Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam). The book features:  Historical, political and sociological essays; Exclusive interviews with artists and organizers; Extensive bibliography and discography; And more to discover soon! The accompanying album can be found on the Syrphe bandcamp: <iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=801999823/size=large/bgcol=333333/linkcol=e32c14/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="http://syrphe.bandcamp.com/album/not-your-world-music-noise-in-south-east-asia">Not Your World Music: Noise in South East Asia by Compilation</a></iframe>