EDM Theory and Fiction: The Conceptual Dimension of Musical Waves. A Conversation with Steve Goodman/Kode9

The crossing of music and academia has shaped Steve Goodman’s career since he started DJing funk and psychedelic jazz in the early 1990s, while majoring in philosophy in Edinburgh in his native Scotland. After moving to England to pursue a PhD at the University of Warwick, Goodman's taste shifted to electronic dance music, specifically jungle, a fast-paced genre based on accelerated breakbeats. Jungle emerged within rave culture and is an early example of what Reynolds would later term the “hardcore continuum.” in the evolution of EDM styles. In Warwick, Goodman succeeded in connecting his academic and musical interests. He joined the autonomous research collective CCRU (Cybernetic Culture Research Unit). There, through the work of British-Ghaneian scholar Kodwo Eshun on afrofuturism, Goodman realized that the intensity of the new forms of EDM like jungle could spawn new concepts: that music was not only about dancing (or listening) but had the potential to inspire theoretical inquiry.