Writing on Raving

by McKenzie Wark, Zoë Beery, Geoffrey Mak

New York rave culture is having a moment. The music, mostly, is techno, certain flavors of which became the soundtrack to a dancefloor culture that is queer in a different way to house music-centered gay nightlife. Wark, Mak, and Beery want to document and annotate and celebrate, but also critique, this world in the making. Writing on Raving centers the New York scene, but isn’t limited to it.

This is a book for all of those who need the rave. Who need to dance. Who have at some point needed that beat in their lives. This is a book for all those who have journeyed through the night, through sound, through movement, through chemistry, into other places, other times, other encounters.

Contributors: hannah baer, Zoë Beery, Destiny Brundidge, Harry Burke, Ev Delafose, Zoey Greenwald, Isabelia Herrera, Kumi James, Zora Jade Khiry, Geoffrey Mak, madison moore, MORENXXX, Afsana Mousavi, Brittany Newell, MX Oops, E. R. Pulgar, Slant Rhyme, Gavilán Rayna Russom, Anne Lesley Selcer, Journey Streams, Linn Tonstad, cranberry thunderfunk, McKenzie Wark, Frankie Wiener, Simon Wu, Chris Zaldua.

Genres: Music

240 pages, Paperback

Published May 27, 2025

About the author

McKenzie Wark (she/her) is the author of A Hacker Manifesto, Gamer Theory, 50 Years of Recuperation of the Situationist International, and The Beach Beneath the Street, among other books. She teaches at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College in New York City.

Reviews

[seamus slattery]

we should do less Writing on Raving and more Writing around Raving or even Writing while Raving

[Raisa Mclean · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me a while to finish this book as I chose to read it intermittently because the anthology style made it a little too dense to read all in one go and many of the pieces I disliked so much I actually had to put the book down. Even so, it was noticeably repetitive despite the space I left between reading some of the essays.

I feel it got off to a bad start with the hannah baer piece. I found it vapid and (much like the other pieces written by white women in this "anthology") incredibly self-important. In a later essay Gavilán Rayna Russom talks about the "whitening of the club" and the way intellectualising the physical act of rave is instrumental in this. Baer manages to intellectualise having her phone stolen and draws a parallel between how the thief may have felt with how someone clearing an NYC encampment of unhoused people might feel. Not to focus too much on this but in my opinion this opening essay epitomises the spirit of the entire book and an insidious aspect of 'rave culture' that makes my blood boil -that is the self important virtue signalling white woman (mainly cis sometimes trans.) I can understand that this book is an "anthology" and as such perspectives from this type of person are necessary, and maybe I am rating the book unfairly just based off of my own personal discomfort with platforming these voices. Or even the disappointment that these spaces are now in reality dominated by these people.

Studying as a curator and immersed in Melbourne's art scene I have experienced first hand this kind of person. Decolonial museologist by day and activist DJ by night, there is no one who feels they are more important in POC spaces than a white woman in the arts. No one who feels they are doing more work, as if writing an essay and playing a mix of Palestinian music at the local quasi-DIY venue is the 2020s equivalent of heading the stonewall riots. I am almost certain that this is the intended readership of this book unfortunately and the frequent equating of raving and drug taking to an almost spiritual/embodied experience was honestly boring. Girlies, the act of snorting coke, ketamine and MDMA is not that deep...

IN SAYING THIS, there are some incredible texts in here. Isabelia Herrara's "When Din Becomes Discourse," Simon Wu's "For Folk Tales," Ev Delafose's "Dancing Lonely: becoming Black, Queer and Trans," Destiny Brundidge's "We Can All Live in This House," and Gavilán Rayna Russom's "Moments in Funk" are a few. I wish that the editors picked one of these to begin with but maybe here we see on paper the reality of todays rave culture, a space that privileges white woman voices as an acceptable form of activism in place of the people that they feel they are saving.

For a scene coming from black and queer communities in Detroit and Chicago it seemed such a shame that this book was not primarily anchored in that history. For something that describes itself as an anthology this was a real let down and I was disappointed that for the most part this book focussed so much on the self.

[Katy]

scattershot, kind of a paradoxical project to begin with, and a significant portion of the essays really felt like first drafts. And yet, I enjoyed, and am I glad I purchased it so I can return to it.

[Mika B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the different perspectives on raving. It was much more scientific, spiritual, and philosophical than I expected.

[jackson, this is olive · Rating 1 out of 5]

dogshit and really I can only blame myself for buying this

[Rugeilė · Rating 1 out of 5]

“…they pushing me up against the wall, my hand in the small of their back, our bones and fascia vibrating with sub, our eyelashes on each other’s cheeks.”
“…i prefer, by the way, to say “flesh” rather than “bodies” because the body, when talked about, becomes an object or a possible possession. one has a body; one is a flesh.”
“For as long as we live, so does this music. techno; a music of brokenness for a broekn world. a music of tearing ad ripping and shredding and scarring. i have held the fabric of my universe together by strings of will and hope and torment and dreams and regrets.”
“I was trying to heal myself from depression, and I figured that the sweaty overnight shift was crucial to my recovery. the clarity and cleanliness I felt after a purge like that, my joints lubricated after hours of movement, the safety I felt in darkness within a crowd. with no pressure to talk, i could ruminate and comb through my thoughts for hours, undisturbed and un-alone.”
“I read that sound travels almost five times as fast across human tissue as it does through air. it’s fitting that these waveforms can pull the levers of our emotions while bypassing our thoughts.”
“it is a time that forgets time, during which time no longer counts (and is no longer counted.) it arrives or emerges when an activity… is in harmony with iself and with the world.”
“all of it was all i ever wanted. then i had an epiphany worthy of the ecstasy that had caused it. even if at times i hated him, i loved the hate, but i did not hate the love. it was all love, all the way down.”

[Brad Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

In general a pretty lovely collection of writing about raving. Again, anything that tries to intellectualize and reclaim the practice from its perception and/or popular form (the version that generally involves a lot of talking and cocaine and keinemusik), will have always my admiration. It doesn't quite overlap with phenomenology as much as I generally think or would like it to, but rather focuses on the political, social, and queer aspects of raving as a practice. I'm happy to get behind this, but I felt like some of the essays covered the same bases about queer-ness within the scene. Writing that is more about the environment and anthropology than the phenomenon itself: lots of intellectualized language that can often feel exclusionary to those who might not find themselves predisposed to drug-filled sex with strangers at Berghain. And again, I'm not against this, but this is personally not what I find interesting in the act of raving.

That being said, there's a lot of love here, and a desire to protect a community that needs protection.

[Kaitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is tightly edited and it shows. As with most anthologies, there's a variety of approaches. The more poetic/lyric texts were a bit hard for me to get into. At the launch event, the editors mentioned many pieces going through 3-4 rounds of editing, and I appreciate that most of them are succint, "and can be read in the time it takes to make your coffee." Many of them capture the embodied, sensual and political stakes of raving in very special ways. I liked that the book didn't get too high and mighty about sex and dancing and drugs, it was both matter of fact and artful in its own way. Its a little insider-baseball but definitely a testament to a scene, a zeitgeist, and a network of relationships.

[Rúben · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice anthology about raving, with a big diversity of written pieces, ranging from people who makes raves, to door, to those who participate in it, historical views on it, political views and more.

I did like some of the pieces in it, and I like that it wasn't super focused on the whole drug & sex part of a rave, although it's present in this anthology. Some of them felt really well-structured, and it was a delight - even sad how short some of these are - reading them.

Others, I was a bit confused by the narration of whatever was going there.

Overall it feels well edited and I think it's worth a reading.

My favorite ones were by McKenzie Wark, Destiny Brundige, Kumi James aka BAE BAE, Geoffrey Mak, MX Oops, Shawn Dickerson

[Hannah Vliet · Rating 4 out of 5]

sacred. seminal. scattered.

a lovely time capsule, as prickling and sensual as it’s popping pink cover might suggest.

had a lot of fun reading this on the train, in the bath, over coffee. will be returning to many essays again. this is the kind of book one has the joy of revisiting for a long time!

oh and if i was president we would all get tax incentives for going dancing!

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s a little sad, but I thought most of the accounts lacked in diversity or perhaps imagination. Rave scene has so many angles to it, would be nice to explore some of the less expected ones. Otherwise you can just head over to Erowid for a bunch of trip reports and be a lot more amused.
Although maybe it’s just me being jealous. I miss dancing.

[Michelle Musheyev · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Medical condition of a lip flip. Medical condition of a beat drop. Medical condition of a broken heart. Bit by bit, we inch closer to heaven.”

I feel like raving is in some peoples survival guides.

[Tim Owe-Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixed bag - but some real gems in here; MX Oops, Chris Zaldua, Shawn Dickerson and the pieces by the three editors were my favourite. 3.5

[Kristina Zlatinova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved. Captures well the freedom and otherworldliness of the techno community that you can only really experience, well, when you’re experiencing it.

[caroline bates]

I bought this book when I was drunk at 1 AM on St. Marks Place. There's a reason why bookstores shouldn't be open at 1 AM.

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly chaotic and some of the essays were so white centered but outside of those some of them were so good I wish I could have them in powder form to snort.