UK dance music shifted from future-directed to intensive internal exploration

Evidence

Simon Reynolds: The word “future” does not crop up in contemporary dance music discourse — in either the conversations surrounding the music, or in track titles and artist names — with anything like the frequency it did during the Nineties. From artists with names like Phuture, the Future Sound of London, Phuture Assassins, etc. to UK rave/early jungle which teemed with titles like “Futuroid”, “Living for the Future”, “We Are the Future”, etc., the whole culture seemed tilted forwards. Everyone was in a mad rush to reach tomorrow’s sound ahead of everyone else. That ethos continued into the early days of dubstep with the club name FWD». But looking at the last half-decade or so of UK dance music, I really struggle to think of any equivalent examples. Soul Jazz just put out a compilation of post-dubstep called Future Bass, and then you have the “future garage” sub-genre, although the irony here is that this direction involves going back to the 2step rhythm template circa 1998-2000. But generally speaking the whole idea of the future seems to have lost its libidinal charge for electronic producers and for fans alike. This seems to reflect the fact that dance music in the UK, and globally, is no longer organised along an extensional axis (projecting into the unknown, like an arrow fired into the night sky) but is intensive: it makes criss-crossing journeys within the vast terrain that was mapped out during the hyper-speed Nineties. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1236

Categorization

• XREF: Directly anticipates Fisher’s own “slow cancellation of the future” / hauntology thesis and the retromania argument about popular culture no longer projecting forward — classic K-punk theme stated with richness. — connects to: Electronic dance music moved from formal innovation to production refinement across the 2000s — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1257; Dance music’s shift to fragile introspection marks a loss of collective cathartic release — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1243; Dance music’s Nineties futurism gave way to Noughties fixation on the past — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1247 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Electronic dance music moved from formal innovation to production refinement across the 2000s #corroborates (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1257
• The inward turn in post-dance music privatised what rave felt collectively #expands (0.85) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 450
• Nineties dance music was affective but not introspective or romantic #corroborates (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1304
• Dance music’s inward turn traded collective affect for privatised emotion #expands (0.85) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 450
• Dance music’s shift to fragile introspection marks a loss of collective cathartic release #qualifies (0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1243
• Dance music’s Nineties futurism gave way to Noughties fixation on the past #qualifies (0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1247
• Dance music’s affect was collective catharsis, not romantic introspection #contradicts (0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1304