No system but a Sound System: Inside Britain’s free party scene

Across London, there is a new generation of ravers who are carrying the flame at the forefront of the UK’s illegal rave community.

It was a dreary Friday morning in South London, but inside Electric Brixton, the party was well and truly all night.

I look down at my phone, adjusting my eyes to the glare of blue light reflecting in my palms.

The time, ‘5:23 AM’, shines brightly back to me, and with 40 minutes left, I draw my attention back to the sea of people. The night shows no signs of slowing, and I see a tangle of limbs flail against the wall of subs and drivers, lined sturdily against the stage at the front of the room.

The bass stopped being something you could just hear hours ago; it became something to brace yourself against, reverberating the sharp twangs and low dips of hard trance through the soles of my feet, settling in the middle of my chest.

Odyssey Sound System, a crew of party professionals, were behind the night at the repurposed theatre.

They were joined by other well-known rave collectives and collaborators like Sports Banger, N4 Records, Singularity, and EA Raves.

Together they promised a night of non-stop dance music, transitioning from old school and piano house, to drum and bass and jungle tekno.

Born out of true DIY culture, this crew has continued to bring the ethos of the free party scene to every event, whether that be a muddy field in Cambridge or, in this case, Brixton High Street.

They operate as a mobile Sound System, hauling their expansive kit across the country for day festivals and raves; unbound from a single venue or music genre, Odyssey represent a continuation of Britain’s rich, long-standing free party community.

Free party culture was ignited sometime in the late 80’s and early 90’s, alongside the rise of acid house and anti-establishment movements; it was seen as a radical pushback directed at combating the commercialisation of nightlife, criminalisation of youth culture and seen as an antidote to the typical state-sanctioned restrictions placed on mainstream clubbing.

Many club-goers embraced raving as a new, separate, countercultural playground revolving around eco-activism and anti-capitalist ideals. Free, in this sense, relates to the price of entry for the events, as well as the lack of rules and law enforcement.

One of the most notable parties to date was the Castlemorton Common Festival held back in 1992, which is the largest illegal rave recorded in history, spanning seven days and attracting an eye-watering 20,000 attendees.

Born in response to Avon and Somerset police trying to put an end to the annual Avon Free Festival, it was held in the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire between May 22 and 29, merging rave ideals with new-age travellers.

The values of the free party subculture have always been rooted in community and group action, with the abbreviation PLUR (peace, love, unity, respect) being the backbone of the scene, as well as the use of the mantra ‘leave no trace’, encouraging all ravers to leave the nature around party sites undisturbed.

While the media and police forces fretted about acid-dropping, pill-popping ravers taking over the common land, more and more revellers ventured across the country to partake in what became a week-long, techno music hippy haven.

Of the many Sound systems that supplied music for the festival, a group called Spiral Tribe was arguably the most militant, hoping for a truly transformative summer for both punters and organisers.

However, like many anti-establishment movements, the free party scene has not existed without backlash. When the festival came to an end, 13 members of the Free Tekno group were arrested by West Mercia police and charged with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. They faced a long and costly trial, which eventually led to their being acquitted in 1993.

The following year, the new Criminal Justice and Public Order Act was introduced by Michael Howard, then the Home Secretary of John Major’s Tory government.

Section 63 of this legislation gave police sweeping powers to ‘intervene with or remove people from gatherings of twenty or more people in the open air, where amplified music via repetitive beats cause serious distress.’

This section also gave police powers to seize equipment and stop vehicles within a five-mile radius of any suspected events, and failure to comply with police orders can result in hefty fines or sometimes even prison sentences.

While this legislation was introduced as a deterrent, it hasn’t stopped communities from banding together and organising. Even at Odysseys event in Brixton, whispers of the next night’s party, ‘London’s Calling’, were in the air.

Unlike the paid and ticketed event in Brixton, this was a large-scale, meticulously planned illegal squat rave, set to be located at an unmarked warehouse in Beckton.

This was the second year that ‘London’s Calling’ was set to take place, with this year’s event to be its bigger, better, multi-rig successor. Organised by 18 crews, private group chats promised a full-fat, audio-visual masterpiece.

Word of Illegal raves like ‘London’s Calling’ were historically delivered through flyers, or tip-offs from friends of friends, but in more recent years, encrypted messaging channels like Telegram are usually the main form of communication between organisers and party-goers.

On the Saturday evening, all systems were go. Party people from across the country made a pilgrimage to the city for the biggest party of the year so far. Directions were delivered into a group chat of just over 3,000 members, and within the first hour, the queue to get in was halfway down the road.

The party was equipped with security, fully stocked bars, art installations and independent stalls selling handmade accessories and zines. From 10:30 that Saturday night to noon on Sunday, the rigs in that repurposed warehouse didn’t stop pumping, with only the most dedicated ravers seeing it through til daylight.

Free parties like ‘London’s Calling’ have always existed as liminal spaces; they contrast with the hyper-commercialised, manufactured club culture that is often portrayed in the media and are unbound by expectations of what a crowd should be. They bring together ravers of all ages, genders, sexualities, classes and cultures with one unifying passion: dance music.

Despite being immersed in the subculture for some time myself, I wanted to speak to other young people from across the country on why they are drawn to free parties and what this community means to them.

Ethan Stone, 19, is part of the new generation of ravers finding his footing in the scene. From Middlesbrough, he is currently building his own Sound system, Monarch Audio, which he describes as both a technical obsession and a personal calling.

Having been involved in the scene for just over a year, his entry into the Soundsystem culture was, he says, “a pivotal moment in my continued existence.”

For Stone, free parties are not simply just a place to let loose, but acts of collective resistance. “It represents the ability of individuals to come together for a cause bigger than themselves,” he says.

In what he describes as “an increasingly divided and artifically segregated world,” these communities allow people to “truly represent themselves how they see fit,” and remind each other that “experiences of peace and happiness do exist, and that we can come together and unite under one banner.”

He describes these parties as a means of suspension from the rigid structures and drains of everyday life. “I believe a free party is what you make it […] if you seek chemical relief, then it will be found. If you seek engineers, builders, audio, and lighting technicians, they will all be there.” He goes on, describing the raves as a “mural of talent and skillsets.”

When asked about what it’s like to be standing before a fully stacked Sound system, he answered, “It’s indescribable […] thousands of watts of electricity running through the body,” detailing the feeling of the bass as something that collapses the boundary between sound and physical sensation.

It was these experiences that pushed him to start building Monarch Audio. He describes free parties as something technological, yet deeply human, “it’s the post-modern equivalent of dancing around a fire,” he told me.

When reflecting on ‘London’s Calling’, Stone answered earnestly, praising the crews on “a legendary party […] a spectacle of what people can create for the love of the game.”

However, he did not shy away from discussing some of the more pressing issues that members of the community faced at the event, with reports of violence at the party being broadcast on social media.

“It goes without saying, parties aren’t the place for weapons […] seeing people in the same community as me being scared to attend parties or being hurt doesn’t sit easy,” he tells me, adding that it is “an indication that something has gone terribly wrong, on a much larger scale.”

Ethan says this violence represents broader social fractures: “gang culture, structural deprivation and chronic underfunding of public and youth services, all of which are especially evident in the capital […] a culture that has come out of destitution, poverty and neglect, these problems will inevitably surface within it.”

By acknowledging these incidents, the crews are not attempting to excuse what happened. Organisers took to social media to openly condemn what happened that night, restating that these gatherings are in no way a safe place for gang violence.

Due to the anti-establishment nature of squat raves and free parties, mutual aid and self-policing are among the most crucial aspects of maintaining a safe environment within these spaces.

The tensions that surfaced were not born in a vacuum; they mirror the very real pressures that young people enduring poverty, austerity and shrinking public services have been facing.

To frame the free party scene solely through these moments of conflict would do a real disservice to the truly expansive, vibrant and dedicated community of crews, technicians, artists and party-goers.

What’s important is that the sustaining of these spaces continues to be shaped by the real underlying values of resistance and creativity. These have always been the foundations of the community, set out by ravers of the eighties and nineties.

As the free party movement expands and changes with each new generation of ravers, it continues to be representative of the power that we hold when we choose to come together.

From the creation of sound systems in garages to the prioritisation of harm reduction and education, even to those offering safe rides to and from events, this community is a testament to the anti-establishment blood that has run through the veins of the scene since the beginning.

It exists in squatted warehouses, barns, fields and forests. It is a protest wrapped in a big, beautiful hedonistic bow – proof that, as Ethan put it: “Partying has always been political.”

You can find more images from London’s Calling by @damaged.retina on Instagram

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Featured image courtesy of Damaged Retina via Instagram.