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The Dance Music Archive documents 30 years of rave culture online

The Dance Music Archive has gone live, documenting 30 years of club and rave culture online. 

A huge resource, visitors to the website can sort by decade and year to discover leading music news from the day and specially curated Spotify playlists based on the biggest tracks of that time. Alternatively, search by artist, DJ, or radio show to be presented with countless historic recordings, many from original DAT tapes.

Articles, profiles, and interviews are also available in written form, with current in-depth reads available on institutions like Liverpool’s Cream and Cafe Mambo in Ibiza, while video content runs the gamut from a documentary on The Warehouse Project to BBC Two’s 1997 televised dive into the burgeoning club scene in Leeds — now home to DJ Mag’s most recent Meet The MC star, ATO.

The project has been headed up by DJ, producer, and radio host Andi Durrant, who rose to prominence at the end of the 1990s and during the early-2000s as a DJ at Sheffield trance superclub Gatecrasher, where he often played alongside regular production partner Nick Riley. 

“It started as a bit of fun in lockdown – uploading some DJ mixes from my radio shows over the last 20 years, but it quickly snowballed into something much bigger and we’re now building the world’s biggest library of electronic music and culture,” said Durrant.

“We’ve put a huge amount of time and love into creating the website that brings together all the news, pictures, artwork, flyers, playlists, DJ mixes, radio shows, and resources into one place — all organised by year,” he continued. “It’s a real rabbit hole and we hope it’ll grow organically and be something to really celebrate our scene for years to come.”

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