The ecstasy of rave culture

Techno, desert, and trance. And a surprising success with the public. From a fascinated audience that spares no praise, to another that leaves the theater before the end. Boosted by the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Sirat , by Oliver Laxe, was the third most-watched film in Spain from June 10 to 13, behind How to Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch . The ecstatic world of open-air raves takes to the big screen with that path, that trail, that bridge over hell, finer than a hair and sharper than a sword, that people must cross to reach paradise after dying, alluded to in the Islamic world by the word sirat . A path, in this case, to other states.

“I would have liked to get to know those raver figures a little better, something a little more intimate, to get to know them better. But I understand Sirat 's impact, and I enjoyed it. What moved me most had to do with the image and sound,” says Cris, an artist who attended outdoor raves for years. She recalls the world of anti-festivals, like AntiSónar. “I'm a sleeper. I'd get on my bike at seven in the morning and go there, dancing for free from the start.” And she notes that she particularly liked the rave world “because it was a non-capitalist party.” There was more. “At the rave after the Creamfields festival, on Villaricos beach, I remember waking up and being offered soup. It seemed like the greatest thing to me. They're always associated with chemical drugs, which were present, but there was a sense of community. I remember applying cream to people's burnt skin, passing around canteens— Sirat 's opening is true to that. There's no chance to get to know each other through conversation, but many hours of dancing, connecting visually and physically with people, creates a fleeting friendship that's much more amiable than it might seem if you're listening to the rave from a mile away.”

“Phenomena like this will always exist because there is a kind of very archaic connection to it.”

“It's,” Cris emphasizes, “a type of music I really liked, drum and bass, breakbeat, hard techno. I was very connected to the bass, which also comes out in Laxe's film, that thing that seems like the earth is shaking. There's a connection with the music, but also with the movement, the bounce, the community... It's what makes us believe we know each other better after ten hours of dancing with people. And then, I like dancing during the day, outdoors.” A Dionysian moment: “Phenomena like this have always existed, exist, and will continue to exist in one way or another because there's a very archaic form of connection there.”

Rave culture emerged in the late 1980s with music from the US that permeated places like Thatcherite England and its battered working class. Simon Reynolds recounts in his book Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture (Contra) that “the football match and the warehouse party offered the working class one of their few opportunities to experience a sense of collective identity: belonging to a “ we” rather than a powerless, atomized “I. ” In San Francisco, he says, raves sought higher consciousness and hailed the DJ as a digital shaman. In Los Angeles, its rave explosion was more hedonistic.

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Reynolds talks about early acid house and the crucial importance of MDMA, ecstasy, and its empathic effects. “It takes you outside of yourself into a blissful fusion with something greater than the miserable, isolated self,” he notes, “it’s the drug of the we.” And he points out that in rave culture there’s another way of using music, regardless of track names or artists, and that “while rock narrates an experience, rave constructs an experience.” “Can a culture be based on sensations rather than truths, on fascination rather than meaning?” he asks. He answers: “While I celebrate its ability to empty my mind, I’ve discovered that this silly music gives a lot to think about (...) it uses sound and rhythm to construct psychic landscapes of exile and utopia.”

One of the ravers in the mid-nineties was Pistolero, who got his nickname for dancing with his hands as if shooting. “We had a group of friends and we threw raves all over Spain. Sónar, Benicàssim, Festimad, Dragon Festival—we would have a real riot under a tunnel or in an abandoned monastery. There was an enormous energy flowing; techno and electronic music had arrived, and we started throwing parties because many of our friends in our group wanted to play, to DJ. And this gave us a lot of freedom; you didn't have to pay entry or behave in a certain way. You'd sell cans of beer for one euro and go out to clean up and buy some more equipment.”

Rave culture was born in the late 1980s with music coming from the US.

And he recalls that “a lot of different people came; you didn't have to dress any way. You just wanted to be there. And the power of the music moved a lot of people, who took care of themselves. There was a desire to discover new people.” He recalls a few run-ins with the riot police, “although normally the police just asked you to clean up,” but in the new millennium, a law banned “self-powered sound systems on the street; they confiscated your equipment.” That put many off.

“Drugs were essential at that time of wanting to enjoy freedom, but what was produced was a unity, like a family, there was excitement. The energy filled you; you knew it was going to be spectacular, an open night, that anything was possible. That motivated everyone to go. Today, I feel there's more drug abuse, from very young people who are very outdated,” he acknowledges.

Cultural Studies professor McKenzie Wark writes in Raving (Black Box) that she is interested in “people for whom rave is a collaborative practice that makes it possible to tolerate this life,” a practice that opens up a time “outside of all other times” and allows, for 75,600 beats, “to be absent from the terrifying story from eleven at night until eight in the morning, to appreciate this other time and to appreciate each other.”