30 Years of Dance Music History Are Now Available in an Online Archive

An online database has been created to document three decades of dance music and rave culture.

The newly launched Dance Music Archive allows visitors to deep dive into 30 years of dance music history from the 1980s onwards through a wave of different content – including DJ mixes, radio shows, blogs, artwork and more.

The team behind the project spent a substantial amount of time ripping CDs, gathering physical documents and curating Spotify playlists to create an audio-visual representation of the evolution of dance music.

The archive explores both regional and global foundations, with material and data from around the world. What started initially as a lockdown project has developed into an ever-growing library curated by DJ, producer and radio host Andi Durrant.

Speaking about the project, Andi says: “During the coronavirus lockdown of Spring 2020, I found myself with a little more time at home than usual. I was having a dig around the loft and came across a couple of boxes of old guest mixes from my radio shows over the years. I’ve been honoured to have some of the biggest names in dance do sessions for us, and I’ve tried to keep as much as possible.”

“I’ve always been a bit of a hoarder, and to the annoyance of my family, I have boxes and boxes of what most people would consider rubbish, but I think contain a little part of the rich history of our scene.”

The Dance Music Archive has the potential to become a pivotal factor in celebrating electronic sounds and the subcultures around them.