"A slow but seismic change in the culture"

Hello again, hope you’re well. As promised, here’s a little monthly update with some things I’ve written, and some things I haven’t written (whether words, music or otherwise) that I think you might like.

Before I get into that, though, I posted this offer of assistance on Instagram recently, and it seemed to resonate with people, so I’m sharing it again here:

Having stepped back into freelance writing recently after some time away, I’ve been thinking about the privileges that come with being “established” in whatever sense, and how opaque and hard to break into journalism can be as an industry.

I know it’s not much, but if you or anyone you know are trying to get a foot in the door, then please drop me a line on hello@edwardgillett.com and I’ll help however I can: advice on pitching, feedback on ideas, or even just sharing my snazzy Google spreadsheet for tracking work (see above).

This is open to everyone, but particularly people who might not otherwise be supported or encouraged to think that writing about music is for them.

I promise that I’m going to stop going on about Amy Lamé soon, not least because I’m rapidly running out of Night Czar-related puns.

Sneaking in under the wire, however, is this extremely deep dive on the fall-out from her resignation, and (more importantly) the broader question of whether political roles like the Night Czar are really what we need, which I put together for the Quietus a couple of weeks ago. At 3,400 words I think it might be the most that anyone’s ever written about this particular topic, featuring a lot of the people driving the debate at London and national level.

One of the comments which really stood out for me was Finn McCorry talking about “a slow but seismic change” in dance music, and the wider question of whether political discourse is truly keeping up with those shifts.

I came late to this recent-ish piece on the magic of the smoking area by Rose Lyddon but I thought it was beautiful. It also dovetails very nicely with this more political take by Daisy Jones on rumours that Keir Starmer may try to ban smoking areas, and a great bit of on-the-ground vox-poppery by Safi Bugel.

I’m a lifelong asthmatic, so smoking areas are a strictly time-limited indulgence for me, and I do occasionally get quite militant about the people I love needing to cut down, but damned if I don’t go all Voltaire when the subject of smoking in clubs comes up.

Society needs spaces where we get to behave badly. Nightclubs can be many things, but they’re fundamentally spaces dedicated to collective self-indulgence and pleasure, rather than the strict assessment of social behaviour on a cost-benefit basis. “Banning these places is part of a wider effort to bring every area of social life under control” writes Lyddon: a sentiment I agree with fully, even as I reach for my inhaler.

The latest in a spate of nightlife articles bemoaning London’s apparent dearth of late-night options was published last week by the Standard. I’ve also seen this week’s Time Out list of post-1am bars shared with a downbeat spin, despite the article itself framing the list positively.

I’m increasingly sceptical of the argument apparently taking root in the media that London’s nightlife is uniquely rubbish, often using quite dubious stats used to bolster those claims. Having got my hands on the raw data for that Standard piece, for example, it’s clear that the numbers don’t quite match the rhetoric: it gestures at a crisis in Londoners throwing house parties, when the stats show that around half of 18 to 24 year olds have done so in the last 12 months, which… feels like quite a healthy number, actually?

Of course nightlife is in trouble, and requires action to protect it, but the primary issues underpinning that problem are national and global, rather than local. Attempts to frame the argument around London being a special case feel less and less helpful, in my view.

I’m not sure there’s much I can add to this gorgeous, heartfelt piece by Martin Samuel, better known as a sports writer, talking about the lasting effect of hearing a particular tune in a Soho basement 35 years ago.

It’s a tribute to the wonderful Ashley Beedle, in part, but also to the that familiar sense of serendipity and meaning many of us find on a night out, and carry with us forever - no matter how small they might be, those moments matter.

I find South London dance duo Two Shell’s seemingly endless post-ironic promo japes (sending lookalikes to play for Boiler Room or chat to the Guardian, online interviews that disappear after 24 hours etc) the absolute height of tedium. So you can imagine how gutted I was to discover that their debut album is actually brilliant: twitchy, gloopy, infuriating and irresistible. This review for Pitchfork by the excellent Will Pritchard nails my conflicted feelings on it.

I went to a talk recently by Dan Hancox, one of my biggest inspirations as a writer, on his new book Multitudes. Having just started reading it, I can confirm that it’s predictably exceptional, and recommend it extremely highly.

Fellow high-quality-opinion-havers No Tags are also putting a book out, collecting the conversations they’ve had on their superb podcast (including yours truly chatting about Amy Lamé and the rest). Full details here.

It feels like there’s been a tipping point on social media recently, with a critical mass of people abandoning X for the greener pastures of Bluesky. I’m one of those making the switch - here’s my profile, if you fancy following.

Okay, that’s it for this month! Hope you’re having a lovely one, see you soon.

Cheers,

Ed.