Books published by Velocity Press

In Bedroom Beats and B-sides, Laurent Fintoni details the rise of bedroom producers at the turn of the century through the stories of the instrumental hip-hop and electronic music scenes that made this rise possible. From trip-hop, illbient, and IDM to leftfield hip-hop, glitch, and beats, the book explores how these scenes acted as incubators for new ideas about composition and performance that are now taken for granted. Combining social, cultural, and musical history with extensive research and over 100 interviews, the book tells the B-side stories of hip-hop and electronic music from the 1990s to the 2010s, exploring the evolution of a modern beat culture.

The Secret DJ's first two books lifted the lid on what really happens behind the decks in the sometimes hilarious, sometimes harrowing world of the superstar DJ. Now they've reached out to dozens of DJs from around the world - and from every scene and genre - for their own true stories of the DJ life Tales From the Booth raises the BPM, rounding up an all-star cast of Secret DJs to tell their anonymous stories of what it's really like to rock dancefloors for a living. From strange encounters on tour, to side-splitting debauchery and afterparty excess, to the seamy and even dangerous side of the industry, this is your access-all-areas backstage pass. You'll never look at a DJ quite the same again.

During the second half of the 1990s, Paris experienced a dance music revolution thanks to groundbreaking artists like Daft Punk, Air, Super Discount, Motorbass, Cassius, Dimitri from Paris, Bob Sinclar and many, many more. It was a scene that became known as French Touch and was heralded throughout the world as the epitome of dance music cool, forever placing Paris on the dance culture map. Journalist and author Martin James was there right from the start, documenting the scene from its inspirations to its earliest moments and onto its global breakthrough. In the process, he inadvertently provided the French Touch moniker that became adopted throughout the world. Drawing on a dazzling array of exclusive interviews with the biggest names in French electronic music history, French Connections explores France's significant contribution to dance music culture that paved the way for the French Touch explosion.

Coming To Berlin reflects, through the lives and music of migrants, settlers and newcomers, how a constantly in flux city with a tumultuous history has evolved into the de facto cultural capital of Europe. And how at the heart of this, electronic music and club culture play a unique role. A plea for multiculturalism and a love letter to the borderless potential of music, the book breaks the tradition of Berlin's perception as techno ground zero and shows the true diversity and richness that make up this city. Told through Paul Hanford's novelistic narration, Coming To Berlin mixes imagination and interview, psychogeography and narrative, humour and horror. Each chapter follows encounters with people who have made the city their own. Club legends Mark Reeder, Danelle DePicciotto and Monika Kruse. The journey of a young Syrian refugee who has immersed himself in DJing and UK Drill. Ferruccio Busoni, an Italian Weimar era composer whose influence has echoed subliminally for over a century. We catch glimpses of the 1980s punk and art movement, the Genialle Dillentanten, and how it led towards the birth of modern club culture in the city. We follow the Turkish hip-hop scene on the streets of Kreuzberg. And under threat from gentrification, into the post-pandemic world where clubs, a thirty-year long pulse stopped, we hang out with artists reshaping electronic music into new genres and even new genders.

Daft Punk's Discovery is a record that looked into the future and liked what it saw; an album that predicted the electronic music explosion, YouTube and the end of privacy, while dragging soft rock back into vogue. Discovery was not only one of the best albums of the 2000s, it was one of the most prophetic, the kind of record that makes you wonder: how did they know? Discovery was a record that confounded many fans when it was released in 2001, thanks to its blatant pop hooks and unlikely sonic bricolage. It was a record that was - and still is - widely misunderstood; Discovery's impact has only become clear with the passing of time, as Daft Punk have been proved right time and time again. This book is a homage to a fascinating, troubled beast of an album that casts a huge shadow over the 21st Century, as Discovery reaches its 20th anniversary.

In the form of a richly illustrated compendium, Tape Leaders is an indispensable reference guide for anyone interested in electronic sound and its origins in Great Britain. For the first time, a book sets out information on practically everyone active with experimental electronics and tape recording across the country to reveal the untold stories and hidden history of early British electronic music.

In the summer of 1989, when Trip City was first released with a five-track cassette EP by A Guy Called Gerald, there had been no other British novel like it. This was the down and dirty side of London nightclubs, dance music and the kind of hallucinogenic drug sub-culture that hadn't really been explored since Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Maybe this is why Trip City is still known as 'the acid house novel' and an underground literary landmark. Over the decades, Trip City became shrouded in scandal and mystery. The original London book launch literally descended into a riot - shut-down by the Metropolitan Police. Everyone from the makers of Raiders Of The Lost Ark through the director of Candyman tried to adapt the book into a movie but imploded in the process. But for 2021, Trip City is back in this all-new incendiary incarnation - including a new introduction by author Trevor Miller and a foreword by Carl Loben (DJ Magazine editor). Perhaps Trip City is uniquely sum

Written by former DJ/producer Harold Heath, 'Long Relationships: My Incredible Journey From Unknown DJ to Small-time DJ' is a biographical account of a DJ career defined by a deep love of music and a shallow amount of success. From the days of vinyl, when DJs were often also glass-collectors, to the era of megastar stadium EDM, it's a journey of 30 odd years on a low-level, economy class rollercoaster through the ups and downs of an ever-changing music industry. Long Relationships is a love letter to DJing and to every small-town DJ who never made it to the big time but whose life was enriched and improved by DJing anyway. It's packed with tales of gigs, clubs, raves, warehouses, music, record production and record deals, low-rent international travel, shady promoters, dodgy club security, magical dance floor moments and much more. If you ever DJed, if you ever lost yourself on a dance floor, or if you ever simply fell in love with the potential contained within a dark basement, a str

Whether looking at an imposing modular system or posing with a DX7 on Top of the Pops, the synth has also always had an undeniable physical presence. This book celebrates their impact on music and culture by providing a comprehensive and meticulously researched directory of every major synthesizer, drum machine and sampler made between 1963 and 1995. Each instrument is illustrated by hand, and shown alongside its vital statistics and some fascinatingly quirky facts. In tracing the evolution of the analogue synthesizer from its invention in the early 1960s to the digital revolution of the 1980s right up until the point that analogue circuits could be modelled using software in the mid-1990s, the book tells the story of analogue to digital - and back again.

Showcasing the mastermind behind some of the most iconic rave flyers and record covers of the late eighties and early nineties, Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art is a comprehensive insight into Junior''s incredible back catalogue. Intrinsic to the spread of rave culture in pre-internet days was the dissemination of flyers, giving ravers information on where and when promoters would be organising parties. To stand out from the competition events needed to have distinctive flyer artwork and Junior''s visionary capabilities led to a long-running career as a flyer artist. His often surreal imagery earned him the title ''The Salvador Dali of rave''. 30 years since he designed his first flyer, this book documents his work, with commentary and draft sketches provided by Junior himself. Chronicling the work of a pioneering artist whose art was part of the visual identity of early rave culture, Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art marks a critical time in British history. In a time where division and c

Jungle and Drum & Bass was like nothing else the world had experienced before - simultaneously black and white, urban and suburban, old skool attitude and new school innovation. A socio-cultural melting pot of early 90s broken Britain seizing the wheel and taking control of the machine. Originally published in 1997, State of Bass explores the scene's roots through its social, cultural and musical antecedents and on to its emergence via the debate that surrounded the apparent split between jungle and drum & bass. Drawing on interviews with some of the key figures in the early years, State of Bass explores the sonic shifts and splinters of new variants, styles and subgenres as it charts the journey from the early days to its position as a global phenomenon. State of Bass extends the original text to include the award of the Mercury Prize to Reprazent for the New Forms album and brings new perspectives to the story of the UK's most important subterranean urban energy.

Since the dawn of the 1990s, British dance music has been in thrall to the seductive power of weighty sub-bass. It is a key ingredient in a string of British-pioneered genres, including hardcore, jungle, drum & bass, dubstep, UK garage and grime. In Join The Future, dance music journalist Matt Anniss traces the roots, origins, development and legacy of the sound that started it all: the first distinctively British form of electronic dance music, bleep techno. A mixture of social, cultural, musical and oral history, Join The Future reveals the untold stories of bleep's Yorkshire pioneers and those that came in their wake, moving from electro all-dayers and dub soundsystem clashes of the mid-1980s to the birth of hardcore and jungle in London and the South East. Along the way, you'll find first-hand accounts of key clubs and raves, biographies of forgotten and overlooked production pioneers, stories of bleep outposts in Canada and the United States, and the inside story of the early yea