Victor Szabo, “‘People Who Mess With Weird Sound’: Hearing Personal Styles of DJing in the Contemporary US Rave Underground”While some music writers (e.g. Thornton 1995, Reynolds 2011) have discredited undergrounds
as untenable in late capitalism due to porous cultural boundaries and ubiquitous media, the term
“underground” continues to circulate in global EDM culture as an evidently meaningful descriptor
of DJ practices and club/rave scenes, often without imputing purity or authenticity to them. Notably,
writers have long substantiated dance undergrounds through reference to DJs’ styles of programming
and mixing, which marked distance from “professional” standards, and which sanctioned spaces of
safety for minoritized participants (Harvey 1983, Hadley 1993). Music scholars have since mapped
out stratified underground(s) relative to egalitarian attitudes, DIY ethoses, and avant-garde aesthetics
(e.g. Hutton 2006, Harrison 2009, Graham 2016, Garcia Mispreta 2023).
This presentation expands upon the aforementioned scholarship by examining how styles of DJing cultivate contemporary US rave spaces as undergrounds, and indeed perform a regulatory function for them relative to EDM mainstreams. To do so, I draw on my interviews with, and analyses of sets by, self-described underground DJs ADAB, Carlos Souffront, CCL,Furtive, Jake Muir, Kiernan Laveaux, and Yessi, constellating their stylistic tendencies and ways of understanding them. Taking a page from Sontag’s “On Style,” I describe how these DJs make audible their idiosyncratic personalities by troping on generic conventions of programming and mixing, charging their work with a sense of historicity, or what they commonly call “intention.” Ironically, these musical personalities emerge through attitudes of self-humbling and spiritual reverence, in contrast to mainstream DJs’ demonstrations of technical mastery and physical power. Moreover, these particular DJs’ personal styles sanction spaces of freedom and belonging for diversely minoritized participants by becoming legible as both psychedelic and queer, expressive cultural matrices that have enlivened EDM undergrounds—and kept out the squares—since disco.
Lulu Le Vay, “DJing As a Form of Resistance: The Importance of Visibility and Ageing As a Woman in Dance Music Culture”The dance music scene, with its roots in countercultural movements, has always been a space for challenging norms and embracing diversity. However, one critical conversation remains underdeveloped: the visibility of ageing women in this industry. This proposal seeks to explore the significance of ageing visibly as a female DJ, framing it as an act of resistance that is essential for dismantling prejudices and fostering inclusivity.
Ageing in dance music, particularly for women, is often seen as a limitation rather than a strength. The culture’s emphasis on youth perpetuates a narrative that sidelines older artists, devalues their contributions, and reinforces societal ageism. For female DJs, this creates barriers to creative development, as they are pressured to conform to narrow, age-based expectations. By continuing to perform and thrive visibly in the scene, ageing female DJs challenge these stereotypes.
This act of resistance is more than personal. It is a cultural imperative. When ageing women are visible, they create a ripple effect: inspiring younger generations, normalizing diverse representations of women, and providing a blueprint for sustained creativity. Moreover, this visibility contributes to safer and more inclusive environments where women of all ages feel valued and supported in their artistic journeys. The current and historical landscape has sady witnessed a number of women in dance music and dj culture who have chosen to end their lives through suicide. This emphasises the importance to exploring the pressures women are under in this field, as well as the importance of discussing these issues within inclusive and supportive research environments.
The paper will examine key examples of female DJs who have defied ageist norms, analyze the structural barriers they face, and propose actionable strategies for shifting the narrative. In making the case for ageing visibly as resistance, this presentation will affirm that inclusivity in dance music isn’t just about who is present but also about who feels empowered to stay. This shift is essential for ensuring a thriving, equitable, and creatively limitless future for all artists.
Raymond Kyooyung Ra, “Deep Inside”Merriam-Webster defines “whack” as a verb that means “to strike with a smart or resounding blow.” A formal movement used amongst gay men in the 1970s Los Angeles underground punk dance scene, “whacking” involved the dancer’s visual and textural translation of club music beats through their body – an embodiment of sound and energy, a corporeal representation of the onamonapia. The sharp arm strikes that came to be called whacking by their originators later crystalized into a disco genre of its own while retaining elements of the punk dance such as the dramatic poses inspired by films and theater, as well as elaborate arm twirls that stylized action sequences from martial arts films and gymnastics techniques. As the dance garnered national popularity with exposure through the variety television show Soul Train and mainstream musical artists such as Diana Ross, dancers began using the alternate spelling “waacking” instead of whacking in order to semiotically disassociate the genre from its gay origins, the sensorial and affective messiness of queer nightlife and dance floor, as well as the word’s salacious connotations to lunacy or male masturbation.
Returning to what I have referred to as the “texture” of sound – as many dance and movement artists
have interpreted the term ‘musicality’ – I propose a showcase of the Los Angeles-local queer art form waacking
for Pop Con 2025. I envision this performance to be accompanied by an approximately 3-minute edited track
of Hardrive’s “Deep Inside.” Using the simplistically sophisticated and iconic house beat structure, as well as
the sampled vocals of Barbara Tucker, I want to highlight the labor of the body that can transform the technology of music into new feelings, sensations, and “energy” or the materiality of queer dance. And as queer dancers have historically expressed on dance floors and Tucker sings, maybe “all we need is love” at this time, when we most need something to dance for and about.
Abigail Lindo, “Jungle’s Choreosonic Liveness: Black Acousmaticity and Memory on (and Beyond) the Track”UK band Jungle saw great commercial success in 2023, with the release of their song “Back on 74,” which
featured vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Lydia Kitto. Band members Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland
founded the band in 2013, and quickly gained a following from their grandiose dance sound captured in recorded tracks interweaving funk, (neo)soul, and disco to produce something that simultaneously sounded futuristic while ushering the past into the present. This temporal distortion is supported by recording techniques that communicate era/age and transformation as an aspect of songs– something further created using dramatic, one-shot music videos furthering the sonic aesthetic as a visual reality – I argue, with specific capitalist-driven aims.
