Welcome to Jointhefuture.net. It’s the online home of Join The Future, an ongoing, multimedia project from journalist, author and researcher Matt Anniss.

What is Join The Future all about?

Join The Future focuses on electronic dance music and club culture, with a particular interest in hidden histories, under-documented scenes, and musical movements that have previously been omitted from mainstream narratives. While much of the historical content we research and share focuses on events within the United Kingdom, it sometimes touches on histories of individuals, collectives, communities and movements in the United States and Europe. Join The Future is not just a platform for writing and audio related to dance music histories, though, as we also include content on contemporary electronic music, events, and books and documentaries that chronicle or analyse the culture.

The Join The Future project began life a decade ago through Matt Anniss’s research into the then hidden history of bleep & bass. This research led to a critically acclaimed book on Velocity Press, a compilation album, a monthly radio show/podcast, and semi-regular events including book talks, panel discussions and parties. We’ve also joined forces with 1 of 100 to create a special edition T-shirt, with all our proceeds going to St Luke’s Sheffield, who run palliative care services in the Steel City.

What are ‘hidden histories’?

Hidden histories are exactly what the term suggests: histories of people, events, communities or musical movements that have previously been omitted from authorised, ‘official’ cultural and social histories. They’re sometimes called ‘secret histories’. We believe they’re important, not only because we can learn something from them, but also because they often contradict the mainstream historical narratives that frequently appear in popular culture histories. Hidden histories are often, though not always, those of marginalised people and communities. Uniformly, they are those that receive (or have historically received) little media coverage (for a variety of different reasons). We fully support the efforts of other researchers, journalists and authors working in this field.

Work with us: Join The Future Projects

As a  brand, Join The Future is well regarded thanks to our efforts to provide content that is thoughtful, rigorously researched, well argued and presented with a strong, coherent visual identity. Our founder, Matt Anniss, is an experienced communicator, journalist, host, editor and speaker, with extensive experience of writing liner notes and bespoke essays, chairing panel discussions (especially at festivals, including We Out Here, Watching Trees, Inner City Electronic, No Bounds and FORWARDS), DJing at events, audio editing and scriptwriting, and curating event line-ups. Join The Future Projects is our vehicle for commissioned content, collaborations and other work utilising the skills and knowledge of our founder, as well as the brand itself. So far, Join The Future ‘projects’ have included a fanzine (created to be bundled with a post-punk compilation album), scripts for a series of short, social-media friendly videos on the history of house music culture in New York, editorial consultancy, a small and targeted PR campaign for an album release (with accompanying ‘virtual sleeve notes’) and various essays commissioned to accompany compilations and reissues.

If you have an idea for a collaboration or commissioned Join The Future project, please email us at hello[at]jointhefuture.net or get in touch via our contact page. Note that for larger projects we can manage budgets and commission other creative professionals (for example designers, other writers, illustrators etc), utilising Matt’s network of fellow creative professionals and collaborators.

Who is Matt Anniss?

Our founder Matt Anniss is a music journalist, author, editor, researcher, DJ, public speaker, event host and dance music historian. He has been DJing in clubs since 1997 and promoting events since 1998. He began writing about electronic music and club culture the same year and has not stopped since. He is a contributor to DJ magazine, Juno Daily, The Quietus and Resident Advisor, has penned countless sets of sleeve notes and liner essays for various music releases, and has previously written for Red Bull Music Academy Daily (RBMA) and Mixmag, amongst others. He was Editor of IDJ Magazine between 2006 and 2008. Since 2009 he has written countless non-fiction books for children, young people and adults on a wide variety of subjects. For a full list of these titles, and other work credits, visit his website. Matt is currently undertaking a part-time research degree (PhD) at Southampton Solent University, researching the history of rural and peripheral rave culture in East Anglia. He presented a paper on the thinking behind his research at DC23, the first academic conference devoted to research into electronic dance music culture. You can read an article based on that paper presentation here.

Outside of his research and writing work, Matt is an experienced DJ, mix-maker, occasional producer and experienced event promoter. He founded monthly party best before: in Bristol in 2003, co-founded the Bedmo Disco collective in 2007 (best known these days for their acclaimed remix of Zenana’s ‘Witches’ on Rush Hour, but previously responsible for 95% of releases on their own Bedmo Disco Records imprint), and previously held residencies at UFO and Zoo (both at Dojo, Bristol). He has also deejayed as Anti-Fun and as part of the paganistic, robe-wearing TR13E collective. Matt is also a sports anorak. He has written professionally on Rugby League and triathlon, but also knows quite a lot about a wide variety of sports. For his sins, he supports Norwich City FC.