Christodoulou, C. 2026. Drum and Bass as Cultural Accelerator: Underground Resistance or Ecstatic Concession to Speed? in: Rietveld, H.C. and Young, T. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Dance Music Cambridge University Press. pp. 167-181
| Chapter title | Drum and Bass as Cultural Accelerator: Underground Resistance or Ecstatic Concession to Speed? |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christodoulou, C. |
| Editors | Rietveld, H.C. and Young, T. |
| Abstract | Drum and bass is a form of electronic dance music (EDM) based on break-beats that are sampled (digitally recorded from pre-existing copyright material), looped (repeated) and dramatically sped-up using computer software and techniques like ‘time-stretching’. Often running at tempos in excess of 170 BPM (beats-per-minute) - around twice the speed of the 1960s and 1970s soul and funk records from which ‘breaks’ are often sourced – drum and bass is one of the fastest EDM genres to achieve significant cultural attention. Its emergence via dance clubs and raves in the deindustrialised spaces of inner-city London during the early-1990s points to an interrelationship between the stratified experience of speed in an accelerated culture and the effects of post-industrialisation on the genre’s mainly urban and working-class participants, many of whom have been socially, economically and geographically immobilised by the fast and fluid transactions of deterritorialised techno-capitalism. This chapter will argue that the musical and discursive development of drum and bass is entwined with both the cautionary ‘dromological’ positioning of philosopher Paul Virilio and the assertive accelerationism associated with Nick Land and other theorists from the University of Warwick’s Cybernetic Cultural Research Unit (CCRU). Thereby, it will consider the role of drum and bass as both a form of cultural resistance within underground EDM against the socially deleterious effects of an accelerated culture, while seeming to embrace the jouissance produced by speed in its sonic and wider cultural contexts. |
| Keywords | accelerationism; accelerated culture; bass; breakbeats; drum and bass; jungle; speed; techno-capitalism |
| Book title | The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Dance Music |
| Page range | 167-181 |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Publication dates | |
| Published | 07 Feb 2026 |
| Series | Cambridge Companions to Music |
| ISBN | 9781009215817 |
| 9781009215824 | |
| 9781009215787 | |
| Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009215817 |
| Web address (URL) | https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-electronic-dance-music/1265039E11A7B7BF9FCA026EF991E5C8 |