A Very Special Announcement
a.k.a. First Floor is coming to your bookshelf.
Big news: I’ve got a book coming out.
It’s called First Floor Volume 1: Reflections on Electronic Music Culture, and it’s slated to arrive on July 7 via Velocity Press. (That said, anyone who pre-orders the book via the Velocity Press website will receive their copy in early June, and as an added bonus, all First Floor subscribers can get a 10% discount if they use the code “FF10” at checkout.)
Here’s the cover, which was designed by Joe Gilmore.
As the title implies, First Floor Volume 1 is mostly a collection of essays and articles that I’ve published here in the newsletter during the past few years, and it came together after Velocity Press—a publishing house that, by the way, is responsible for a lot of great books about electronic music—approached me with the idea a few months back. Still, it’s more than just a “best of” collection; all of the works that previously appeared in the newsletter have been freshly updated, and the book also includes exclusive new material, both from myself and Martyn, who kindly agreed to write the foreword. (Also, let’s be real; even the most devoted First Floor readers likely haven’t read every single edition of the newsletter, so the book is a chance to get caught up on all of the most important stuff without having to comb through the digital archives.)
To mark the occasion, I even got some new photos taken. (Anyone who knows me can tell you that this was a painful process.) Here’s one.
Anyways, I’ll have plenty more to say about the book in the months ahead—and yes, some book presentation events are currently in the works as well (stay tuned for more details on that)—but given that First Floor Volume 1 is so obviously tied the work I’ve done here in the newsletter, I just want to quickly give a heartfelt thank you to anyone who’s read an article, shared one of my pieces online or otherwise supported my efforts in any way during the past few years. It’s been incredible (not to mention humbling) to watch First Floor grow from a modest weekly mailer into the platform it is today, and I’m excited to see where things go in the months and years to come.
In the meantime, however, Velocity Press asked me to put together a little something to accompany the official book announcement, an explanation of what First Floor Volume 1 is all about and what inspired its contents. For dedicated readers of the newsletter, there likely won’t be too many surprises in the words I’ve written, but I nonetheless figure they’re worth sharing here; after all, this is basically where the book began in the first place.
Don’t forget: enter “FF10” at checkout for a 10% discount.
First Floor started small.
Back in 2019, I’d been working as a music journalist for more than a decade (and had logged nearly another decade in radio before that), and when my primary gig suddenly evaporated, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do next. I did, however, want to do something, and a newsletter seemed like a manageable project that I could control—not having to pitch editors was a big part of the appeal—and continue to do until the next proper job came along.
A weekly digest that included a round-up of electronic music news, some track recommendations and a little bit of my own commentary, First Floor wasn’t launched with any real expectations. The first edition only went out to 89 people. Within a few months, however, those numbers had climbed significantly, and I gradually came to a realization: people were actually reading this thing. At some point, First Floor basically became my full-time job, and in an era when music journalism is often whittled down to whatever works best in a social media post, the newsletter has found a robust audience, one that still appreciates long-form writing and thoughtful consideration of not just electronic music, but the culture and industry that surround it.
Admittedly, many of the articles and essays I’ve put together have been critical—a fact that isn’t always appreciated, especially by folks working in the music industry—but even at their harshest, my words are driven by one thing: a genuine passion for electronic music. Having spent more than half my life immersed in various facets of independent music culture, I’ve seen a lot of artists, trends, scenes, hype cycles and operating practices come and go. Electronic music—and dance music in particular—has always been a highly transient space, and there’s something undeniably exciting about that, but when even the most engaged participants frequently tend to drop out of the scene after a few years, it does often feel like historical perspective and institutional knowledge are in short supply.
First Floor does its best to counter that, and over the past three and a half years, I’ve tackled a wide variety of topics, including the evolving nature of electronic music fandom and artistry, value shifts brought on by the current changing of the generational guard, the shortcomings of the modern music press, the inequities of the streaming economy and the growing gap between electronic music’s foundational rhetoric and the genre’s present-day norms. These individual pieces aren’t necessarily meant to provide a definitive final word—oftentimes, asking questions is just as important as providing actionable solutions—but taken together, they do provide something of a comprehensive look at contemporary electronic music culture during a time of profound change.
That, at its essence, is the point of First Floor Volume 1. A collection of my most thought-provoking essays from the newsletter (all of which have been updated), the book—which also includes a foreword from veteran artist and 3024 label founder Martyn—is a nuanced, wide-ranging exploration of electronic music. Informed by the past and enmeshed in the present, its contents also cast a keen eye toward the future, pondering where the culture and industry could (and should) go in the years to come. It may not have all the answers, but for anyone with an interest in electronic music, the issues raised all merit serious discussion.
Shawn Reynaldo is a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him on LinkedIn and Twitter, or you can just drop him an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or potential work opportunities.