When an old friend offers to speak to you about their first novel before anyone else, you grab the chance with both hands.
and I used to work at the same agency, writing words for clients and trying to make them meaningful. But really, our greatest thing in common is music, specifically [small ‘c’] club culture.A respect for the craft of DJ’ing and remixing as genuine forms of creative expression. Our shared belief in the dance as a space for communion and liberation.
Ecstatic, effervescent, an epiphany at its best.
He has poured all of this and more into FOLK, a coming-of-age novel with a bittersweet twist. We follow earnest overthinker Mark Fisher as he stumbles and fumbles to find his place in the world, in a “renegade youth group” of “waifs and strays”.
Ambivalent to so much around him and a detached observer, someone more inclined to agonise from the sidelines than to give himself over to the moment, Mark becomes enthralled by the rave culture of early 90’s Britain.
The catalyst for this awakening is mysterious newcomer Jason, a proverbial cat among the pigeons who might have just dashed Mark’s hopes of romance with long-time crush Zee.
Although this Byker Grove-like clique is a little late to the party, as it’s 1994 and the Second Summer of Love is long gone, you can still feel the flux in a society that’s living in the shadow of Thatcher and clamped down by the Conservatives under Major.
Young people, in particular, are outraged and politicised by the denial of their right to gather, protest and celebrate, most infamously through the Criminal Justice Bill (CJB), which attempted to outlaw “repetitive beats”.
A draconian piece of legislation described by another Mark Fisher as a form of “cultural exorcism, commercial purification and mandatory individualisation”. Putting up barriers instead of dissolving them and curbing civil liberties under the guise of public safety.
FOLK’s Mark is pulled into this countercultural melee and the promise of unity in the thick of these unfamiliar sounds. Anticipation is in the air.
Possibility.
He senses it’s a moment of seismic change.
“Kurt Cobain is dead. Freddie Mercury is dead. Guitars are dead. Something else is coming. Something has to fill the void.”
It’s a very relatable, engrossing tale about rites of passage, the fleeting innocence of youth and an ode to ‘dance music’ as transcendence.
“Beyond the barrier there is a hunched figure who must be the DJ. We find a spot. I let the music, which is unfamiliar and a bit scary, carry me; to trust what is happening. Because it is only by letting yourself go that you can really feel anything.”
What an illuminating conversation. Stef and I spoke about:
Trying to make Mark an everyman by partly drawing on his own memories while also borrowing from cliche
Mentioning no tracks and making space for the reader to insert the “phenomena” of their own youth
Rave as a political act and the message of FOLK in our present moment
What it means to live a life of “no ends, only transitions”
The slow reality of getting published and why it’s an act of will
Featuring:
BJORK – Big Time Sensuality (The Fluke Minimix) [Elektra]
JAMES VS THE SABRES OF PARADISE – Jam J (Phase 3 Sabresonic Tremelo Dub) [Fontana]
NIGHTMARES ON WAX – Aftermath [Warp]
MOBY – Go (Woodtick Mix) [Outer Rhythm]
GLOBAL COMMUNICATION – 7.39 (Original Cassette Demo)
THE WATERSONS – Country Life [Topic]
APHEX TWIN – On (Mu-ziq mix) [Warp]
PROPER MONDAY NUMBER – Deep Clean [DFA]
SOURCE DIRECT – A Made Up Sound [Metalheadz]
CODE 071 – A London Sumtin (Tek 9 Remix) [Reinforced]
HUTTON DRIVE – Amber Line [Soma]
EAST 17 DIVISION – Textures [Big Sound Works]
ELBEE BAD – (you’re a leader of) A New Age of Faith [Larhon]
MASSIVE ATTACK – Unfinished Sympathy (Paul Oakenfold Mix) [Wild Bunch]
FOLK will be published by Velocity Press on 8 August. Pick up a copy here and head to Stef’s site to find out about upcoming events in London and Berlin.
Other ML interview specials you might like:
SE London musician Sam Akpro
The Chronicles of DOOM author Skiz Fernando Jr
Steven Vass, author of Let The Music Play: How R&B Fell in Love with 80’s Synths
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