23 MINUTE WARNING

Repost. If you haven't seen it yet, you should do it now!

SPIRAL TRIBE VS MUTOID WASTE

"an old vhs tape was found on a farm in france covered in birdshit and hay

cleaned up well

a good example of the power of creation and non consent yeah its changed but that is cos we let it

forward the revolution

peace"

SPIRAL TRIBE MANIFESTO

By spiral tribe

DMCWORLD INTERVIEWS SP23 CREW

DMCWORLD magazine published an interview with Stray Wayward (aka Spiral Mark) and Sirius, both members of the SP23 crew (sp23.org). SP23 is creative collected formed by some of the core members of the Spiral Tribe soundsystem. 

Mark is currently working on a book I am really, really.. really looking forward to. What makes me so anxious is that I am almost certain that this book will be THE book I would be able to call my bible. In "A Darker Electricity: Life On The Road With Spiral Tribe" Mark will chose to tell the story of Spiral Tribe in a creative way by weaving narrative threads together and not just create a chronological list of events. Thus creating an interesting storyline I am dieing to dig in to. Finally I will be able to read the whole story of which I now know only a few scraps I picked op from interviews, articles, flyers and other media we once searched and shared on this blog. One of the main reasons we started this blog is to collect all the information that was available online and make sure it doesn't get lost. Many websites from soundsystems in the early 90's were disappearing so we wanted to make sure that these pieces of history wouldn't get lost. Creating one place to find out more about the history of the current free tekno movement. Especially the legend of Spiral Tribe which became a great source of inspiration that became a part of the free person I am now. A part of the manifesto I put together a few years ago, which sums up what we stand and fight for as a soundsystem, is based on the reason why Spiral Tribe was formed. A group of friends got together to resist the system that limits our own creativity and freedom of expression. Their weapon in this battle was Spiral Tribe. Re-read our manifesto and you'll know which part I am referring to. 23 years later these constrains are still being enforced by governments but also still resisted by many collectives in the form of a soundsystem all over the world. Their cause became a message I now follow and actively spread. I could go on about how much influence Spiral Tribe actually had on my life but I just realized I was just mentioning the upcoming book "A Darker Electricity" and got off track. So my train of thought ends here and the influence of Spiral Tribe in my life will become a post on its own in the near future.

So.. emm.. yeah. "A Darker Electricity" a book by Mark of SP23, obviously highly anticipated by me. You can find excerpts of this book on his blog called WAYWARDTALES.

CLICK HERE FOR THE INTERVIEW

What was it about the whole free party movement that attracted you?

Mark: "I grew up going to free festivals. Stonehenge and Avebury. Something magical occurs when you escape the confines and routines of the locked-down mainstream. It's a combination of things: the community bonds that you feel while dancing together across the night – under the stars; the connection with nature; and a sense that you've stepped outside of a bubble and into the wider world... It's an escape – not away from reality but into reality."

SPIRAL TRIBE ON ARTE.TV TONIGHT

Tonight's La Minute Tracks on ARTE will be featuring the mental sound of Spiral Tribe on it's show. Don't worry if you miss.. I will too. They will be rebroadcasting it.. even on the 23rd. That is when I will be watching :D

Saturday 17 November 2012 @ 23:10
Tuesday 20 November 2012 @ 05:00
Friday 23 November 2012 @ 01:35

"Paint it Black" avec les Mad Max des free-parties, la comète Spiral Tribe - Un reportage de Gabrielle Culand
(with preview video)

Sans eux, le mouvement des free-parties serait resté confiné aux campagnes anglaises. Au début des années 90, dans le sillage de la comète Spiral Tribe, toute l'Europe a plongé dans la musique électronique avec pour mot d'ordre "free party, free music, for free people". - continue here

You should be able to watch it here (when it broadcasts)

EDIT: the video was uploaded by ARTE.TV to YouTube, so I can embed it :D

FREE FORCE OF TEKNO

Old flyer post, because their designs still rock :)

HAKIM BEY WITH 69DB AND OTHERS

Hakim Bey Talks with users of Public Netbase
March 18.1995

Excerpt from the transcript. May I advice you to read the full transcript.

SEB:
On that point for me it's interesting living in a communal group. The way that suddenly you realize that the whole process of what you are doing is in fact an ego game, that you are working out amongst all the other people involved - we all come from western society.
It took me psychedelics to wake up to be honest. And it took me being in a situation whereby Brittain had an underground movement which lasted for four years solid. And this movement was a Free Party movement. This was coming together thousands of people and all dancing underneath the stars for sometimes periods of two weeks. This were serious nights of partying. This brought us to the edge where we suddenly realized where our freedom lay.
Everyone thinks we are free, we were told that - and I believed it all the way - but suddenly when you push out and find out that by expressing your freedom you got riot police coming in and beating people up, suddenly you find out that your freedom doesn't stretch so far.
There is this issue in Britain of Commonland. I remember when we were in Leeds we were looking for a place to do a party. The traditional place in Britain is Commonland. I went to Leeds to have a look at the maps of Commonland, and all the land that was given to the people, there were only two pieces left. I checked both places. First was a field for a farmers corn and the second place was an airport... This is land that was given to the people for specific parties and festivals, put it's not there anymore, it's been sold off.

X:
This shows us that in the end you need physical space. If you want Immediatism, you want physical space.

XX:
Maybe we should go to virtual space.

X to H. BEY :
But this is a contradiction to immediacy, cause immediacy claims that you shouldn't use the media to come together but you use physical space. And in the end this is inconsistent.

H. BEY :
This is not exactly what I've said. What I said was that there is no Temporary Autonomous Zone without physical space. I didn't say that there is no interrelationship between cyberspace and physical space. Of course there's a relationship - there are many different kinds of relations. But what I'm talking about, how I'm defining freedom for the time being, if it doesn't include the body it is an illusion. If my eyes are free but my nose isn't, so this is not what I call freedom. I say there is no festival inside cyberspace. If it doesn't interpenetrate with the physical world, then it's simply another form of representation. Everything which was once lived, has now moved away into representation. And if this is felt to be a form of un-freedom, than it is precisely representation which we find ourselves in a struggle against.
In this sense it may be necessary to ultimately take up a very hostile stand toward cyberspace, or we may find it is a useful weapon, but we will not find our freedom in a machine. We won't find our freedom as a representation in a machine. I can turn myself into a cartoon figure going to virtual reality and act all kinds of fantasies but that won't be live, that would be representation. A representation of myself to the space and a representation of the space to myself. In that circularity there is no exit - there is no escape from that kind of viscous circle. So that's why I don't say that there's some dichotomy between the physical and the non physical but the one without the other is not freedom. You see what I'm saying?

XX:
No that's not true! Because you can leave this material world. It's not so easy but it's possible - you can go into immaterial, antimaterial world.

XXX:
For me that's an interesting point. All live is representational anyway, we are living in a type of illusion or cyberspace reality where we have these meat machines to walk around. Cyberspace doesn't exist yet. In the moment the closest space that we have to cyberspace is innerspace, where creativity - perhaps - ultimately comes from.

H. BEY :
Well, we all know, that there is no absolute direct experience - that the body itself is a medium, that proprioception is mediated by the nervous system etc. etc. But I still maintain that it is possible to construct a hierarchy of values in which certain things are more and certain things are less embodied. To simply take some kind of Berkleyan idealism, which is what I'm getting from you - to say that the body has no reality and therefore there is no difference between virtual reality, whether it be virtual or actual virtual reality, is something that I have to reject.
I don't see this lack of distinction. I know that there is a great platonic, mystical, gnostic dualist tradition, which you guys seem to be here today to represent, which really does believe, that we are going to leave our body, that there's some real eternal entity inside the body, which is going to escape and is going to heaven when you die. I don't know this shit and frankly I don't believe it - it's finished - I might as well go become a Christian.

XX:
I can show you this concept mathematically - you can proof it. Matter, antimatter - other forms of energy. The last human chess master - if the computer is better in chess than the best human chess master the same can happen to literature and music.

H. BEY :
First of all I've never met anybody from the antimatter world. So I don't have any opinion about the existence of consciousness within the world of antimatter.
Second chess can be reduced to mathematics, we know that this is true, but we don't know that literature or life or flesh can be reduced to mathematics. That has not been shown to my satisfaction and if it's shown to yours I would appreciate some references.

SEB:
On this issue, for me, you would help me if you would clarify the difference between meditation, the psychedelic experience, the trance dance, what happens at rave parties. I think on these lines as a backup to what I'm doing with the techno side and also looking at creativity and the idea of clearing the ego from the process and allowing pure source energy through. What is the difference?

H. BEY :
Possibly we're talking about different states of consciousness. My inclination is to think everything is real, which of course means reality becomes a very fuzzy concept. But I have experience of the world of the imagination too. It's on the level that one experiences it. It's of course very very real. It can change your life and through it you can change the world. So the imagination is clearly something which is as real, in this sense, as anything else. Virtual reality is as real, in this sense, as anything else. But I would go back to the idea of a practical hierarchy, which has to be ultimately, subjectively based. Is it doing it for me, or is it not?
On the bases of the only possible values, that we can create for ourselves - this kind of gradation of media, by which I mean language, body, everything, can arrange in some kind of a useful program for oneself, where certain spaces are more liberated. Certain modes of consciousness are more joyful. That's really the best I can say. .

SEB:
What about the idea of improvisation, the whole idea of reflecting the moment. How that is necessary to the development of the consciousness, it does seem to have the ability to pull the mind in and take it somewhere. This whole process is very important for culture and has been obliterated in the west for the past few hundred years but does seem to emerge through the subcultures and always has done.

H. BEY :
I think improvisation is a good key to this. If you can develope a kind of Zen-approach to this levels, so you need not use a hard and fast religion, ideology or philosophy to prejudge the utility of one level over the other that would be the appropriate modus operandi. The best way to go would be what I call a psychic martial artist.


Read the full transcript here: http://hermetic.com/bey/hb18-3pu.html

SPIRAL TRIBE FLYERS 1994-1996

There might be one or two that have been posted before.. but there can't be enough spiral in your life. Our collection on the Spiral Tribe era is still available, so don't forget to check it out if you haven't. Explore it here! Feel feel to contribute if you have anything to add so we can make sure it doesn't get lost in time.

23 SKIDOO ERISTIC ELITE

(click to enlarge)

The first story which caught the magic of the number 23 written by William S. Burroughs. Later picked up by Robert Anton Wilson and the rest is history. Today I am still caught in the 23 enigma. What about you?

If you wonder why the number 23 is embraced by the tekno movement you might want to read our guide to the number 23.

THE NUMBER 23 FOR DUMMIES

MAKING A NOISE

Making a Noise – Making a Difference: Techno-Punk and Terra-ism

By Graham St John (University of Queensland)

This article charts the convergence of post-punk/post-settler logics in the techno-punk development in Australia. Exploring how punk would become implicated in the cultural politics of a settler society struggling for legitimacy, it maps the ground out of which Labrats sound system (and their hybrid outfit Combat Wombat) arose. It provides an entry to punk through an analysis of the concept of hardcore in the context of cultural mobilisations which, following more than two centuries of European colonisation, evince desires to make reparations and forge alliances with Indigenous people and landscape. To achieve this, the article traces the contours and investigates the implications of Sydney’s techno-punk emergence (as seen in The Jellyheads, Non Bossy Posse, Vibe Tribe and Ohms not Bombs), tracking the mobile and media savvy exploits of 1990s DIY sound systems and techno terra-ists>, aesthetes and activists adopting intimate and tactical media technologies, committing to independent and decentralised EDM creativity, and implicated in a movement for legitimate presence.

Keywords

techno, anarcho-punk, hardcore, sound systems, postcolonialism, Sydney techno-punk scene

Contents

Making a Difference

Hardcore: Intimate and Tactical

Knowing the Score: EDM and Tactical Dance

"Improtopia": Sydney Techno-Punk

Party-Machine: Vibe Tribe

Techno Circus and Desert Punks

Conclusion

---

Download full article here (dancecult)

__

More Dancecult here

RAVE DAIRIES

GOOD TIMES 1992
Very cool read about the magical year 1992, when free raves where at their peak, written by Tim Knight.
 --
"So 1992 was a good year then. Well, for me, and for a few thousand hedonistic others, 
it will never be beaten."
--

Read it here!

THE TRAVELLING SHOW MUST GO ON

Old spiral tribe article!

SPIRAL TRIBE MANIFESTO

WE ARE ALL ONE TRIBE

WE COME TOGETHER AND WORK AS ONE 

WE TRAVEL THE EARTH SHARING ALL THAT IS OURS

THE NEW HIGH SPEED INFORMATION IS FOR ALL TO HEAR

 -

TECHNO COMBINES DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY WITH THE ORGANIC LIFE SYSTEMS AND IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE FORM OF MUSIC TO DATE

 -

NON VERBAL AND NON LINEAR THE PULSING ENERGY OF TECHNO BREAKS ALL BARRIERS IN COMMUNICATION

 -

OPENING UP NEW CHANNELS IN HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS IT TRANSCENS THE TERRESTRIAL DIMENSION AND CONNECTS US WTH OUR FUTURES

AT FULL VOLUME THE RESONANCE AND RYTHM OF SOUND INPUTS THE EXTRA ENERGY REQUIRED TO JOLT THE HUMAN SENSORY CIRCUITS UP ITO THE NEXT LEVEL

 -

FROM THE TERESTRIAL TO THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL 

AS WITH THE MUSIC WE ARE EVER CHANGING, ADAPTING TO THE EVER PRESENT TRANSITIONAL MOMENT 

 -

THRU COMING TOGETHER WE DISCOVER A NEW UNITY AND MANIFEST A NEW REALITY BUT FIRST WE MUST BLOW THE OLD BARRIERS AWAY

 -

THERE WAS A TIME - THERE IS A TIME - THERE WILL BE A TIME AGAIN

OLD SPIRAL FLYER POST

WORLD TRAVELLER ADVENTURES

EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE TECHNO-NOMAD ADVENTURE

Film Documents The European and Middle Eastern Techno-Traveler Movement

New York, NY September 13 — This October, Uncivilized World documents the amazing story of the most underground social revolution with the DVD release, World Traveller Adventures. From the 1990’s to present, several devoted artists of raving and free partying take to the roads through Bosnia, India and even Africa, as they cross geographical borders to export their music through political protest and/or cultural exchange.

Consisting of four exclusive films, World Traveller Adventures marks the first time this movement has been illustrated in images. The historic documents were compiled and filmed by the tribe members of this new genre. The films are: 23 Minute Warning — Spiral Tribe; Storming Sarajevo – Desert Storm; Mission To India – Sound Conspiracy; and African Expedisound – Tomahawk, IOT.

History
The world traveler adventure was born as a result of the U.K.’s illegalization of any gathering of more than 100 people accompanied by amplified music, which “includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.” New Age travelers (an alternative movement of nomads), squatters encouraged by Thatcher’s repression to leave the cities, along with clubbers frustrated by the closure of clubs and early raves were driven to leave England. They traveled to the South American continent, Africa, Eastern Europe, the United States, Australia, Asia, among other countries, to spread their spirit of freedom and music, inspiring others to follow.

World Traveller Adventures Synopsis

23 Minute Warning
The interviews in this documentary illustrate each person’s opposition within a militant movement using parties and music as a way to communicate a philosophical message. In the same way as the mythical label Underground Resistance, who saw music as a weapon to fight against the barriers between races, Spiral Tribe concentrates its creative energies around the rhythms of nature, music and dance, in reaction to society’s prevailing attitude. Also included are two unique Spiral Tribe video clips: “Forward the Revolution” and “Breach the Peace” in addition to archive images of the Teknival at Tarnos (’95) and Carcassonne (July ’93).

Running time: 23 minutes

Storming Sarajevo – Desert Storm
Desert Storm could be defined as a peace-protest sound-system concerned initially with the Gulf War, and later the war in Bosnia. In 1994 (as a result of the Criminal Justice Act and Desert Storm’s difficulty to throw parties in the UK), they head in the direction of Sarajevo. Relentless snow and bitter cold delays them by three weeks and gets the better of their engines and gearboxes. Storming Sarajevo documents Desert Storm’s adventure as they carry foodstuffs, pens, books, medicine and condoms while they organize a New Year’s Eve party in Tusla and a party in a disco in Sarajevo. Desert Storm organizes a Street Parade, despite 70 cm of snow and temperatures hitting –10 degrees C. A policeman asks the organizers to turn the music up, but to dim the lights please –as the frontline is only 10 kilometers away!
Running time: 30 minutes

Mission To India – Sound Conspiracy
Mission to India is the most epic, the furthest-reaching and the longest mission of a European tribe. Filmed in 2001, this documentary tells the story of Sound Conspiracy, the reunion of three sound-systems: OQP, Total Resistance and Facom Unit who decide to set off the mythical Goa. Filmed by Paula of Sound Conspiracy, the documentary follows a travel log where the collective survived a fast, while crossing Iran, imposed armed escort through Pakistan where brutal robbers lurk, and heavy-handed checks by the omnipresent Turkish army in Kurdistan. They arrive exhausted in Goa at the end of November to organize several parties despite the undreamt-of local mafia implanted in this paradise of electronic music.
Running time: 45 Minutes

African Expedisound – Teknokrates, Tomahawk, IOT
African Expedisound follows three French sound-systems (Tomahawk, Teknokrates, and In/Out/True) as they set off for Africa in 5 converted French army lorries. A dozen people between the ages of 25 and 30 hit the road, with no institutional support, 15,000 km across Morocco, the Sahara desert, Senegal and Mali. Their mission is to find the initial rhythm, to understand the African myth, to live what they consider to be the ultimate quest for the ‘free’ generation brought up on BPM (?) The documentary begins in Senegal and the African Expedisound head toward Mali. Their experience take them through ramshackle routes, towering baobabs, and traditional villages under the baking sun. Local children announce the arrival of the “Whites” who have come to put on these “extraordinary, free parties.
Running time: 52 minutes

Bonus Features – Reclaim The Streets
Bonus features include a 4 minute musical documentary featuring images taken from the ’97 parties organized by Desert Storm in Sheffield, Bristol and Oxford. Musical and ecological activists, Reclaim The Streets (RTS) take the philosophy of the reappropriation of public space through cultural resistance to another level. They swept across the UK with street parties in Manchester, York and Oxford, and also appeared in cities like Tel-Aviv, Sydney, and Helsinki, among others.

About Uncivilized World
After being at the heart of the European cultural scene for 6 years, Uncivilized World became a record label with its finger well and truly on the pulse of quality cultural creativity. Its eclectic catalogue of artists includes the Nigerian Femi Kuti (afrobeat), the pioneering American DJ Jeff Mills (techno), the inimitable ‘French touch’ of The Hacker and Vitalic (electro), the DJing world champions of Birdy Nam Nam (hip hop), and the German big band Mardi Gras (jazz). The label has also joined forces with mk2, the biggest name in the French independent film industry, to create the Electronic Cinema collection of film soundtracks. Uncivilized World has also produced a series of music documentaries that have met with much acclaim at International film festivals: ‘Live At The Shrine’, shown at the Sundance festival and filmed at Fela Kuti’s celebrated Shrine venue, ‘World Traveller Adventures’, revealing the nomadic aspect of the techno adventure, ‘Biomechanik’, about the encounter between two different artistic universes when the sculptor HR Giger (the creator of Ridley Scott’s Alien) meets a hardcore DJ, and ‘Blue Potential’, a philharmonic concert filmed at the UNESCO world heritage listed Pont du Gard site.
--
“A fascinating DVD”–Mojo
“You couldn’t ask for a more entertaining and informative look”– Undercover

--

DOWNLOAD PAGE
(updated 08/07/2013)

IN THE AREA

By Spiral Tribe

Click on pic for bigger size!

BREACH THE PEACE

Old spiral tribe pamflet, click on pic for bigger size!

THE HUSH BOY

By Spiral Mark

CASTLEMORTON

UK, 1992

THE SPIRAL BITES BACK

Excerpt from DEMAG (HC UNDERGROUND ZINE) concerning the commercial exploitation of  "Spiral Sound". This issue was also featured in an article by Mark Spiral in Datacide. Find it here: "Teknival - Summer Thunder".