(Reflections on music and politics at the end of 2011 for The Wire magazine) When the Real rushes in, everything feels like a film: not a film you’re watching, but a film you’re in. Suddenly, the screens insulating we late capitalist spectators from the Real of antagonism and violence fell away. Since the student revolts in late 2010, helicopters, sirens and loudhailers have intermittently broken the phony peace of post-crash London. To locate the unrest spreading across the capital, you ...
