London’s Acid Techno Underground
In the early 1990s a new sound was emerging in the underground raves of London.
In a shared squat in Stoke Newington a group of DJs met and connected over a love of music and disillusionment with the commercial clubbing scene. For them, mainstream clubs were too clean-cut and restrictive and house music lacked hardcore edge.
Dubbed Chris, Aaron, and Julian Liberator, the trio started playing illegal Squat parties and sweaty basement clubs as The Liberator DJ Collective. They became architects of a new sound, and filled derelict, industrial spaces with what they called ‘acid techno’.
They fused acid with chunky techno and high adrenaline trance, and their hybrid, gritty sounds reflected the architecture of the warehouses and basements they were played in. The parties began in large house parties that would host live punk bands downstairs (accessible via a fireman’s pole erected through a hole cut into the floor) but, by the middle of the decade, turned into large-scale events that would attract thousands of revellers.
The scene developed via an illegal network of parties. Organisers would often break into spaces on the night, and party goers received the location of the rave via a pre-recorded partyline at the last minute.
