No Tags

Is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel? Or just 20,000 people milling about at the White Claw gazebo?
This summer Tom and Chal attended a LOT of different festivals, which got us thinking about not just what makes a festival good, but what makes a festival a festival.
As well as rating and slating our 2026 jollies, we look back at the half-forgotten lifestyles that birthed British festival culture in the first place, talk about our personal festival histories (guess who hates camping!) and figure out what distinguishes a proper festival from a temporary cluster of outdoor stages and energy drink activations taking over a city park.
Let us know what you think. What makes a festival a festival in your eyes? What are your best and worst festivals – and what’s the saddest festival brand activation you’ve ever witnessed?
No Tags is a self-funded project that we squeeze in around our day jobs. If you want to keep us topped up on White Claw and Happy Tuesday pills, consider joining the paid tier.



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Closing a hectic summer, we’re back with our regular report on the best music of the last three months.
We’re joined as always by No Tags third Beatle and zillennial savant Henry Bruce-Jones to talk us through the more fried corners of his musical diet. Can he sell these stubborn uncs on DMV crime-rap, Ivorian plugg and people who simply refuse to rap on beat? Or will we just have to find our middle ground at the altar of Kwengletarianism?
We’ve listed all the music that we discuss on the show below – so if one particular corner’s not your thing, it’s easy to skip along. Get the full details from notagspodcast.substack.com
Pop Corner (3:00): Kelela, Chanel Beads, Charli XCX, M.I.A., Qendresa
Home Listening (24:20): DJ Plead, K Wata, Leo, Lifted, Dance Fountain, Lilen, Amil Raja
Dance Corner (50:00): Yushh, LWS, Will Hofbauer, Jenny Sparks, Rustie
Rap Corner (1:10:02): Jeune Morty, Twentythree, Jaeychino, RealYungPhil, Tony Bontana, Kibo
Real Music (1:40:10): Nirosta Steel, Father Dionysios Tabakis, Horse Lords, feeble little horse
Experimental Coda (1:53:48): Laurie Anderson, Rabit



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“Is this dubstep?”
There was a time in the 2010s when approximately 23% of all YouTube comments were a variation of this question. One of the UK’s most influential yet misunderstood dance exports, dubstep is also one of those rare genres that can trace its origins to a handful of people working in a few rooms.
That unusual origin story is definitively told in a new book, Aftershock: The Seismic Impact of Dubstep. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews by journalist Lauren Martin, it weaves together testimony from the main players (including Benny Ill, Skream, Hatcha, Loefah, Mala, Coki, Youngsta, Plastician, Sgt Pokes, Kode9, Shackleton, Pinch, Joker and Rusko) with thoughtful framing from the likes of Martin Clark and Ammunition’s Neil Jolliffe, plus stacks of of flyers, ephemera and unseen photos.
We had a blast going through the archives in preparation for this conversation with Lauren, where we talked about Croydon in the early 2000s, the school-age crew that formed around Big Apple Records, the closed loop of creativity that allowed the nascent genre to develop, the particular magic of FWD>> at Plastic People, the impact of Radio 1’s Dubstep Warz broadcast, and the competing explanations for dubstep’s demise in the 2010s, among many other things.
Before the episode’s big drop into dubstep, Tom and Chal compare notes on a very ‘Merican month in the stunned afterglow of the World Cup half-time show, UFC on the White House lawn, a pretty decent Madonna album and Tom’s trip to the sunshine state.
We do No Tags for the love of the game, but you can support the podcast in material ways by buying our latest book or subscribing to our paid tier for £5 per month.


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Keep honking, piggies: I’m listening to whatever rockslop the algorithm just sicked up for me!
So we’ve been circling a certain topic for a while now – in order to be fashionably off-cycle rather than just late to the party, of course – and we’ve finally done enough muck-raking to present you with our red-hot take.
It’s verifiable: your favourite DJ is a psyop.
We jest, mildly. But why is it so satisfying to point to popular things and call them a psyop? And it’s not just Geese, the perfectly solid rock band that launched a thousand hysterical thinkpieces. Angine de Poitrine? Évidemment. Rita Ora? Innit. But what about the current numerical titans of dance music? Your Josh Bakers, Kettamas, Silva Bumpas and, of course, your Freds Again? What does it take to reach the premier league in the age of algorithm?
In this episode we break down the tectonic shifts underway in the game of selling yourself, and how video clips, vlogging, ‘content seeding’ and engineered virality are becoming standard promo tools from the mainstream to the underground. Is your favourite DJ paying low four-figure sums to have someone manufacture a viral moment during their next set? Honestly, they might be. Should No Tags join the party?* Let us know!
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*If you do think we should join the party, these things don’t come cheap. You can support the podcast by buying our latest book, or by subscribing to our paid tier for a mere £5 per month.


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Why be seamless when you can go KLANGGG? This week’s guest is living proof that doing things wrong, backwards, upside-down or simply not at all can reap creative dividends.
We speak, of course, about Djrum. Recorded at our book launch at London’s ICA last December, our conversation with the Oxford-dwelling DJ-producer followed up on the wild acclaim for his 2025 maybe-opus, Under Tangled Silence.
The interview starts at 48:00, but before that we debrief on some new music from old favourites. Is the spirit of 2011 still haunting dance music? We couldn’t possibly say.
Look out for our third listening session at 180 Studios, to be announced soon! Our second book, No Tags: Conversations on underground music culture Vol. 1 is out now.


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