The Hardcore Continuum: a metaphysics for the cloud rave.

The phrase ‘hardcore continuum’ was coined by Simon Reynolds (2009) to refer collectively to a number of contiguous underground UK dance music genres, a “subcultural musical entity” that emerged at the start of the 1990s. Despite variations in tempo and content, these genres shared stylistic sensibilities and media platforms, particularly pirate radio. Reynold’s theory has generated considerable discussion about both its accuracy in describing UK dance music styles and their relationships, and the ontological questions relating to what constitutes a ‘continuum’. Read from the perspectives of new materialist theory, the phrase ‘hardcore continuum’ suggests a specifically ontological reading of the idea of a subculture. Here I expand on theoretical approaches that ‘flesh out’ the concept of a hardcore continuum, and dance music continuums more generally, by considering theoretical ideas that sketch out its metaphysics. In particular work in micro-sociology, in particular the work of Randall Collins on interaction ritual chains (IRCs). I will also introduce the perspectives of microphenomenology, affect theory, and ‘new aesthetics’, which complement IRC theory. Doing so will develop and account of the hardcore continuum, as a cultural, relational field, affective and phenomenal field.