'The definitive story' Q Magazine

'I can't recommend this marvellous piece of work enough' Irvine Welsh

Updated with brand-new material for 2025

Long revered as the definitive work on Ecstasy and dance culture in the late 1980s and 1990s, Altered State follows the UK scene from its euphoric beginnings through to the worst of its commercial excesses as MDMA became a mass-market drug. Acclaimed music journalist Matthew Collin brings together a cast of memorable characters - among them DJs, gang members, promoters and policemen - to examine the myths and ideologies of this revolutionary scene, exploring the criminal underside to the blissed-out image and shedding new light one one of the most spectacular youth movements of the twentieth century.