Source of Matrix Style: Rave Culture

June 10, 2025

Source of Matrix Style: Rave Culture

The signature Matrix style came out of the rave and club scene of the 1980s and 1990s. The first three clips from different Matrix films (1999, 2003, and 2003) show the derivative 2000s' depiction of what had initially been underground illegal gatherings in warehouses, ice rinks, abandoned buildings, and parks. Note, everything here is reproduced non-commercially under Fair Use, for the purposes of discussion.

By the early Millennium, the rave style - black shorts, halter tops, PVC body suits and sunglasses at three in the morning - became a badge of a personal philosophy, a blend of Buddhist and Sanskrit wisdom mixed with gaming, hacker politics and cyberpunk. Here are a few videos and other media from the 1990s which show the original raw sources of the Matrix's signature style, which many have now forgotten.

I'm writing as someone who trekked out to an aircraft hangar with a friend in Munich in the summer of 1996, only to find it had been reclaimed from the rave scene by the German military. Instead of dancing, it became a Kafkaesque, all-night After-Hours-style nightmare trek across the city, trying to get back home.

You can see a playlist of footage from from raves from 1989-1993, here. A really good techno / trance playlist from the 90s is here. There's a channel devoted to remastering old 1980s'-2000s' mixed tapes into HD here - the 1990s techno playlist is here; the 90s' house playlist is here; the drum & bass and jungle playlist is here; the playlists by year include 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 (you can hear the lounge influences!), 1999, 2000, 2001. The channel also has a personal favourites playlist.

There's a Reddit discussion on DJs and mixes from the 1990s here, with some very rare and interesting mentions, along with a list of mixes, and wow - a link to many classic and hard-to-find DJs' mixes.

The Internet Archive, Club Night Recordings.
DJ Hell, Cocoon, Vega Opening (Copenhagen, Denmark) (1996).
Danny Rampling, Love Groove Dance Party 1-2, Love Groove Dance Party 3-4, Love Groove Dance Party 5-6, (1997).
Juan Atkins, WaxTrax - Master Mix, Vol. 1 (1998). You can hear it on Youtube here.
Oliver Lieb, The LSG Black Album (1998).
Richie Hawtin, DE9 Transitions (2005).
John Digweed and Carl Cox, Essential Mix (2006).

By 2024 the scene had evolved, and become vastly more sophisticated. But it started thirty-five years ago with kids in t-shirts, dancing across vacant and gritty urban landscapes, listening to mixes from DJs with names like Neo, Trinity and Morpheus.