Spiral Tribe cofounder and visual artist Mark Angelo Harrison is writing a book about the UK rave scene in the '90s.
Speaking to Resident Advisor, Harrison said A Darker Electricity is about the free party movement and its rise from the ashes of Britain's working class society. It's also "an eye witness account of how imperialist governments wilfully try to criminalise creative cultures." The book is out in September 2023 through Velocity Press.
After graduating with a diploma in creative writing and English literature, Harrison decided to write the book ten years ago, but the project was delayed part way through after personal circumstances moved him to reform Spiral Tribe as SP23 to earn a living.
Seven years later and in a better financial position, Harrison returned to writing. The book details Spiral Tribe's journey from London squat parties and warehouse raves to becoming targets of police operations and their record deal with producer Youth. It recalls their prosecution in the aftermath of seminal UK rave Castlemorton and how they dived into Europe to help spearhead the teknival scene.
Protest was synonymous with the free party movement and Spiral Tribe became one of many advocates of the "exist to resist" philosophy. Harrison said the crew was born from a conviction to take a "creative stance" against "the oppressive nature of the state," particularly after the introduction of the Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Act 1990, which deemed unlicensed commercial raves a "huge threat to the alcohol industry."
The book also charts the start of Spiral Tribe, which, according to Harrison, was born from an "epic moment in free party history" outside Glastonbury Festival in 1990. The curfew at the official festival, combined with a lack of dance music stage, meant the Travellers Field "was the place to be for these epic raves, raves that inspired us Spirals to get a sound system and get on the road," said Harrison. "Everyone present was aware they were experiencing a historic moment."
Read an excerpt from A Darker Electricity in which Harrison writes about meeting other UK party crews in Berlin, including Lost Tribe of Mig, the Berlin faction of the celebrated Mutoids, who were renowned for their towering sculptures made of industrial machinery."Before we arrived the Lost Tribe were already parked up on the dead zone that had once been the route of the Berlin Wall. They'd created a garden around their bug-like, military trucks. The weed-killer soaked dust meant that a traditional garden was impossible.
But, like dragon's teeth, the spent bullets and blasted shrapnel had seeded the poisoned ground—and the artist's imaginations. It wasn't hollyhocks that sprouted from the sterile earth, but a jagged crop of metal sculptures—skeletal, cyborg figures."
The first 1,000 copies of A Darker Electricity will be available in black and silver. They'll be sent to readers with their names inscribed inside in August 2023, four weeks ahead of the book's official launch. Go here for more information.
Correction, June 1st: The book is out in September 2023, not 2022 as a previous version of this article suggested.