No Tags

First, a plug: tickets are now on general sale for No Tags live at the ICA in London on 11th December! There will be special guests, and there will be a new book for sale: Vol 2 is in production now.On this week’s episode we drive headfirst – Modelos in hand – into the discourse around One Battle After Another, the designated cinema event of the year. Is it PTA’s masterpiece, or has he bitten off more than he can chew?OBAA’s ubiquity got us thinking: what was the last album that felt like a monocultural event? Do albums have the power to do this anymore, or were the early 2010s our last hurrah?Finally we debrief on the news that Corsica Studios – the club that Chal and Tom have spent more time in than any other – is closing. We share some Corsica memories but also wonder: should great clubs stay open forever?If you’re a longtime enjoyer No Tags, perhaps you'd consider subscribing to our paid tier for £5 per month. Thanks to everyone who’s signed up so far. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

We all know that hardcore will never die – but do we really know what hardcore is? As a music journalist for 15 years and raver for much longer, Holly Dicker is no stranger to documenting dance music’s heaviest, gnarliest and speediest niches – but in Dance or Die: A History of Hardcore, she attempts to finally answer that big question.From the pioneering hardware assault developed in Frankfurt and Berlin, to London’s grubbiest squat raves, Dutch intercity gabber rivalries and Scotland’s ‘tartan techno’ explosion, Dance or Die is a historical map of hardcore in its many forms.Holly dials in from – where else? – Rotterdam to talk us through the crucial rave tales collected in her book, as well as revealing her personal history with hardcore and offering her thoughts on where the scene went wrong post-Covid.Feeling like a hardcore Taganista? Help the pod by giving us a (good!) rating on your podcast app of choice, leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts, or liking this post on Substack. You can also subscribe to our paid tier for £5 per month and become a member of our own NT Hard Crew. Thanks to this month’s new subscribers! Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

And they said music journalism was dead. It’s list time, losers!When it comes to round-up episodes we like to draft in No Tags’ very own fifth Beatle, Henry Bruce-Jones. Minimal intro required here: we discuss our favourite music of 2025 so far, from the new wave of weird UK rappers to the changing faces of mainstream pop – plus rap oldheads, surveillance electro, minimal techno reboots and more. We didn’t include any of the records already discussed on the pod this year – including aya’s hexed and FKA twigs’ Eusexua – but they’re all still in the running for AOTY, of course.Below is a time-stamped rundown of everything we discussed, so feel free to skip ahead if certain corners aren’t your bag. We like to see No Tags as a conversation between us and you, so let us know your own most loved (and most hated) releases and trends of the year in the comments below, or maybe drop us a reply on Insta or send an email?If you like what we’re doing on No Tags (over 50 episodes deep now!), a really helpful way to support is by leaving us a rating on your podcast app of choice, or leaving us a review over at Apple Podcasts. You can also like or share this post on Substack, which makes a big difference – and if you really love the pod, you can subscribe to our paid tier for £5 per month. Thanks to this month’s new subscribers!Running orderPop Corner (07:40)Rap Corner (38:25)The UK ‘Underground’ (1:05:22)Dance Music Corner (1:27:04)Percies (1:41:42) Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

It’s Glastonbury weekend, and we’re back with the Big Questions.Not a sentence we expected to be saying on No Tags, but we kick off by talking about Will Smith – specifically his recent appearance with London streamer du jour DJ AG. The Fresh Prince is in the middle of a generationally cringe promo run and we’ve been wanting to discuss AG’s streams for a while now, so these two forces colliding over a dubstep remix of the Men in Black theme felt like the perfect opportunity.If you’re looking for something more high-brow, well, you still have to get through Tom’s full review of the Cooper’s Hill Cheese Roll – aka Final Destination: Cotswolds. Once we’re through that, it’s onto higher ground, debriefing recent experiences at Polyphonic Eating with Yu Su, Warp Records’ ‘happening’ at The Barbican and a No Tags night out at Corsica for Hodge and Peverelist. Music writers who still go to clubs? Perish the thought!We always say it, but if you like what we’re doing on No Tags, please do rate and subscribe on your podcast app of choice – or better yet, leave us a review. This stuff really does help. And if you’re really into what we’re doing, please consider subscribing to our paid tier for £5 per month. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

What connects Adonis resident Grace Sands, the free party explosion of summer '91, Deleuzian dancefloor philosophy, and the annual Gloucestershire cheese-rolling competition?It's this episode of No Tags, obviously, but the connecting tissue goes much deeper, we promise. The last third of the show contains our recent conversation with Grace Sands – house DJ, free party originator, icon of London's queer underground – live in Sheffield on 9th May. In a compact Q&A before a screening of Free Party: A Folk History hosted by No Tags and local heroes Gut Level, she set out some of the early ideals of a scene which changed the course of British dance music.We talk about our own reactions to the film, a superb documentary charting the UK’s free party movement in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, featuring members of UK soundsystems like Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and Grace's alma mater DiY.Before all that, for the first hour of the show we respond to some excellent listener feedback on recent pod topics, including who exactly goes to see Keinemusik and what makes the perfect night out. Inspired by one Taganista in particular, Chal expands her recent theory of rave with an important third axis from wiggy theorist Gilles Deleuze. Show us another podcast whose listeners write in about Plato and Love Island!As ever, if you want to support what we’re doing on No Tags, please do drop us a like and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Substack. You can also subscribe to our paid tier, which costs £5 per month. Planning, recording, editing and transcribing these regular podcasts is a pleasure but it’s also a lot of work, and your support truly does make a difference. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Tom and Chal emerge from a proper-large-’avin-it May bank holiday weekend with a desire to explain the perfect clubbing experience. Borrowing a few ideas from Friedrich Nietzsche, we sketch out two divergent tendencies in club culture and talk about the countless variables that accelerate our rave engines. Got feedback? Obviously please write in, DM or voicenote us with critiques of our emergent theory and your Most Transcendental Rave Experiences.After that we’ve got our film corner in its usual place, including a moment for Danny Dyer’s Marching Powder. And it's your last chance to grab a ticket for No Tags live in Sheffield this Friday, 9th May! We’ll be screening Free Party: A Folk History at the Showroom cinema before interviewing Adonis resident DJ Grace Sands, followed by a party at Gut Level.Drop us a like and a review on Apple and Spotify. If you get a kick of what we’re doing here on No Tags, consider throwing us a fiver a month – or spread the gospel to your friends. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

There was only one topic we could tackle this week. The argument boiling over around Boiler Room and the BDS movement is one of the most divisive and emotionally charged intra-scene disputes we’ve seen in a long time.There’s a lot being said in public and in the comments, with much of it relegated to Instagram Stories with a 24-hour timer. So in the spirit of our mission statement – chronicling underground music culture – we’ve attempted to document what’s been going on, provide some vital additional context, and offer our own thoughts on what’s at stake.In this episode we look at the relationship between Boiler Room and its owners – the global events company Superstruct and the private equity giant KKR – and their connections to Israeli tech firms and the Palestinian-led boycott movement. We talk about Boiler Room’s recent statement of solidarity with Palestine and the resulting backlash from fans, DJs and former BR employees, as well as Ben UFO’s defence of the platform, which triggered its own, unusually fierce backlash.Can Boiler Room consider itself part of the boycott on Israel? What’s the right way for DJs, fans and BR employees to show solidarity with Palestine? Why has BR received so much flak compared to the 70-odd other brands and festivals in Superstruct’s portfolio? Can dance music be mobilised into a force for change? And what can Boiler Room – or any of us – practically do in a landscape where private equity firms have their claws in everything?If you’re enjoying No Tags, thanks – we really enjoy making it. But we’d love you to help us out by leaving a review on your go-to podcast app, which really does help visibility. We’d also ask you to consider subscribing to our paid tier, which costs £5 a month and helps us continue planning, recording and editing these regular podcasts. It also gives you a discount on our book. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe