5 must-read books about electronic music
From an oral history of dubstep to Simon Reynolds’ latest work, here are five new books that delve deep into the culture and politics underpinning the UK’s dancefloors
Festival season is behind us, the evenings are getting darker, and the nights are moving back indoors. And for the hours you’re not actually in the club, what better way to pass the time than with a good book about the club?
2026 has delivered a bountiful harvest of deep dives into the world of electronic music and its colourful array of scenes, each with its own sociopolitical backdrop. From an intricate history of dub reggae to a new edition of a definitive work on ecstasy acid house, here are the best books about electronic music to read right now.
Published this summer, Dub Revolution charts dub reggae’s explosion and expansion, from its emergence in early 1970s Kingston, through London and New York, to the rest of the world. From birthing remix culture to treating the studio as an instrument itself, dub’s influence on underground electronic music is underappreciated, but can’t be understated. Through first-hand testimony from dub legends King Tubby, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Mad Professor, Lloyd “Bullwackie” Barnes and others, author, journalist and documentary-maker David Katz offers a forensic history of the genre.
Dubstep has been back for a minute, making journalist Lauren Martin’s oral history of one of the UK’s most influential genres especially well-timed. Also published this summer, Martin traces the history of the first era of UK dubstep, from the late 1990s in Croydon up until the “death knell” of American brostep in 2010, via interviews with the scene’s key players such as Mala, Loefah, Hatcha and legendary MC Sgt Pokes. Billed as the first definitive oral history devoted to the genre, it captures dubstep from the people who were actually there.
Simon Reynolds wrote one of my favourite books on electronic music: Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture , a brilliantly opinionated account of the early dance scene, from Detroit techno all the way through to UK garage. But his recent book, Futuromania, which came out in paperback this year, charts the influence of electronic music on the sound of today, from the 1970s to the present.
Starting with Donna Summer’s I Feel Love and moving through dub reggae, intelligent dance music, grime and dubstep, while tracking technological developments including synths and Auto-Tune, Reynolds explores “the interface between science fiction and pop music, the human use and abuse of technology, and the dreams and nightmares stirred up by electronic sounds”.
Music and culture lecturer, journalist and writer Jacqueline Springer traces the music of Black Britain in The Music is Black . Spanning the 1900s to the 1970s, the book identifies the key imports, American rap and Jamaican ragga, that helped foster the UK’s unique sounds, from lovers rock to trip hop to grime, before examining the sociopolitical forces shaping the lives of the people behind the music. The book includes interviews with Carroll Thompson, Neville Staple, Fabio and Grooverider and Megaman (among others), and provides vital documentation of the Black British diaspora’s influence on British culture.
From an oral history of dubstep to Simon Reynolds’ latest work, here are five new books that delve deep into the culture and politics underpinning the UK’s dancefloors
