“You’re insane!” yells Cassie.

“I’m what?” I yell back. She sticks her tongue out at me. It’s a joke we have. Cassie’s a metalhead, and for half the time (at least half the time, actually) our apartment vibrates to the grinding guitars and strangled vocals of that most refined of sounds. I’d known about it before we moved in together, of course. You get the person, you accept their music as part of the package, it’s the way it goes. As long as she in turn put up with my eighties synth-pop, which pinged out in our living space the other (almost) half the time, we were good.

Anyway, the joke is that Cassie tends to play her heavy metal a little too loud – I mean, it’s all above board and within the government Maximum Safe Volume guidelines (we don’t want the police on our backs, after all) – but let’s just say she pushes the boundaries a little. And the thing with her kind of music: when it’s loud, it’s LOUD. If we ever can’t completely hear each other, there are times it comes close.

It’s also loud enough to play havoc with the voice control, so she’s in the habit of carrying the remote around indoors – this was after I’d complained for the umpteenth time about her screeching, “Half volume!” into the air and the sound system not taking a blind bit of notice because its tinny little ears were clogged up with Metallica.

Now, she stabs moodily at the reduce volume button, then gives me a look. “Happy now? I’m just saying, the last time you ran off like this on one of your novelty jaunts, you came back in such a stinking mood. What is it this time?”

“Yeah, well.” I shrug. “That didn’t work out, but this time sounds really interesting.” I’m still a bit embarrassed about last Saturday, when I’d gone over to see a bloke in Streatham who’d promised “something really far out”, only to be fed some derivative, badly edited pap that was absolutely stuffed with dodgy subliminals. So not only uninteresting, but also illegal. Well, even more illegal. I risked breaking the law, and for what? I’d paid him, then quickly made my excuses and left, as they say. I felt a right prat. There were too many scammers around, and I’d fallen for one. But that was an occupational hazard – if you really wanted something new, something under the government radar, you had to take some risks sometimes. I couldn’t bear the only alternative I could see: numb, dumb conformity. I’ve explained this to Cassie more than once, but she’s so straight it’s untrue. Sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever understand.

“Woman in Wandsworth,” I add. “Notice in Darkchat, you know, the usual. Says she’s got something really different.” I sigh, knowing how it sounds. “Yeah, yeah, I know that’s what they all say. But I’ve really got a good feeling about this one, you know? Like, her ad was so, I don’t know, understated. Like, take it or leave it. As if it didn’t need the hard sell.”

Cassie arches an eyebrow. “A woman, eh? Single, is she?”

“Doubt it. It’s not like that. She’d hardly be advertising something like that if she was after something else, would she? Those ads attract a right bunch of weirdos. Like me.” I grin in what I hope is a reassuring way.

“Dunno. Maybe that’s what she’s into. Look, what am I supposed to think, Pete? You go running off on these weird excursions, seeing who knows who. I just …” She touches my arm. “Just be careful, OK? I saw on the news only yesterday, another of those police stings, breaking up an illegal sounds party in Luton … I just don’t want you getting into any trouble, OK?”

“I know, I know. That’s why I don’t go to those things. Those people are just asking for trouble. They know how the government is about unauthorised music. I’m always careful. Only use Darkchat, which they can’t monitor …”

“Sure about that?”

“Right now, fairly sure, yeah. They’ll probably shut it down sooner or later. But it’s always been the same – whenever they close one way, we’ll find another. Anyway, they’ve got bigger fish to fry than the odd lone weirdo like me. And as I’ve told you, if I go somewhere and get so much as a sniff of anything off, I’m out of there right away. No messing around. And I only go during the day, never at night. So I am always really careful. You don’t need to worry. OK?”

Cassie nods and throws me a watery smile. I know she’s not convinced. But I also know that she knows she won’t stop me. It’s always been the deal, right from the start. I work, I treat her right, I don’t play around. But when it comes to music, I need something new, something different. I can’t explain it. It’s just me.

I leave quickly after that, before I change my mind (or Cassie changes hers). It’s always a wrench, walking out on her like this, when I know she’s worried. It doesn’t help that I never tell her everything – not exactly where I’m going, not the address, nor the name of my contact (not that it would ever be their real name anyway). Always light on detail. I’ve never explained why, but it’s obvious to anyone with even half a brain cell. If the worst ever happened, if I was caught – which won’t happen, but still – I want her to be able to plead at least a degree of ignorance. She might get a suspended sentence for not denouncing me (sorry, “failing to report suspicious activity”), but her record’s clean as a whistle, no previous (or so she told me) – she’d get off lightly, slap on the wrist. Me, on the other hand …

The elevator’s been stuck on Justin Bieber for the last fortnight (I’m sure the landlord has a sadistic streak), so I take the stairs, where I’m treated to some anonymous pan pipes mush floating from the speakers. Kind of nothing-music, but inoffensive enough and you can kind of almost shut it out. Or pretend you can, anyway. The landlord’s not even trying, I think, probably just threw anything on to meet regulations, any continuous mix. Always continuous, of course; no gaps allowed. At least I’m fairly sure there’s no subliminals here – I can usually spot them, though some of the newer ones are very subtle – but then, on the other hand, I reflect that this is probably exactly the kind of music they like to put them in. They prefer it if you’re lulled, not thinking, not noticing; just receiving.

On the street it’s something more strident, a touch of seventies pop. I walk along our road to Mull of Kintyre, but by Brixton High Street it’s London Calling. Which is kind of interesting, because you don’t hear much punky stuff – might give people ideas, probably – but then the local council have always been a touch maverick. Mind you, the traffic noise here drowns out most of it, so the authorities probably don’t care too much. It’s only periodically, in the seconds between the buses rumbling by, that you can hear The Clash in the gaps. Always fill those spaces. Mind the gap.

On the Underground, as usual it all gets more conventional. Mostly classical down here, swelling strings and soothing horns, all the better for keeping the crowds calm. The public health messages are frequent here, too. In the twenty minutes or so I’m underground, I must hear more than a dozen, some more than once. Does your head in after a while. Music is good for you. Tune in, don’t miss out. Illegal music costs lives. What have you been listening to? The government recommends regular sound check-ups – don’t miss yours – they’re free! Don’t forget your night-time sound mix – music makes sleep better, say scientists – and you could get fined up to £5,000 if you don’t comply. Mind wandering? – music helps you concentrate! Do you have noise-cancelling headphones? – if so, do you have a license? – if not you could get fined up to … After a while I put in my earphones and tune into Happy Sounds. That’s allowed. They know what’s on there, because of course they decide what’s on there. Today it’s nineties Britpop. Nothing like a bit of ironic, synthetic outrage; all on brand, check. After a while I get a real craving for Cola-cola. Bloody subliminals. I don’t know what’s worse, the government or the corporations. They both want to control you – different reasons, maybe, but it’s all much the same in the end.

It’s a relief when I emerge blinking into the autumn sunlight in Wandsworth and I can whip off the earphones. Here’s there’s a bit of fifties rock-and-roll – how retro, darling. My old mate Robbie told me last week I shouldn’t use public transport too much, they can track you more easily, know where you’re going and where you’ve been. I told him that was the point. They don’t like people doing too much walking, listening to their own music for too long. If I rocked halfway across London by foot, not only would that take a flipping long time, but they might notice. With CCTV and facial recognition everywhere, there’s nowhere to hide, and they’d soon notice anyone who seemed to be trying to. They’ve got algorithms coming out their ears; if your face doesn’t appear where they expect it to, something gets flagged. I know, my ex worked in the Ministry of Public Order. No, there’s no sense in drawing too much attention to yourself. Hide in plain sight, that’s my motto. Well, not hide as such, that’s not really possible any more, but still. Anyway, I don’t see Robbie so much these days. I don’t know quite what he’s been up to, but I suspect he’s been a naughty boy again. Cassie thinks I shouldn’t have anything to do with him. He’s already served one jail sentence. He should be more careful.

Davies House turns out to be a sombre redbrick low-rise apartment block down a nondescript side street. My heart is hammering as I press the buzzer for flat 9. No matter how many times I do this, I still get jumpy. In the window next to the front security door, a crack arcs from almost the top left down to the bottom right corner like a frozen lightning bolt. I vaguely recall the Wandsworth riots on the TV news a few months ago; they must have been especially bad to have merited a mention. Maybe that’s the reason for the crack. No-one’s bothered to repair it in all that time, then. Probably not worth it.

I press the buzzer again. I wonder what they think when they see me, visiting an apparently random address, somewhere I’ve never been before (and they know everywhere you’ve ever been, at least for the past few years). Going to see a prostitute? Pick up some drugs? Their AI keeps tabs on everyone, but you usually have to do something really noteworthy to get flagged up and have a human being eyeballing you. Though I heard they do random checks too. There’s quite a lot of low-level mischief they’ll turn a blind eye to. Problem is, what I’m doing, they’d probably be interested in. They don’t like anyone messing with the music. It’s too important, too fundamental to how they operate.

“Hello?” A female voice buzzes from the tiny speaker.

“Hello? I’ve got an appointment for 11.30?” I avoid using my real name, obviously. But a fake name can be an equally bad idea. This intercom’s probably online; most are. You use a name that doesn’t match your face, you might get flagged. Again, drawing attention to yourself, not a good idea.

“Oh, right, yes. Sorry to keep you waiting, I was in the loo. I’ll buzz you up.” TMI or what. She sounds older than I was expecting; and indeed, when she opens the door of number nine, I meet a lady in her sixties I’d say; hair greying but eyes bright and keen, regarding me in a friendly but curious way, giving me the once over like they always do. Am I an informer, or an undercover? You get a sixth sense about these things, but of course you can never know for sure. So you take some risks; just calculated ones, and that’s life.

Mind clearly made up, she breaks into a smile and steps aside to allow me to enter. “Hello, do come in.” I smile back and pass quickly through the door, anxious to escape the forgotten third-rate crooner whose boppy schtick is oozing through the corridor. Our dear leaders’ taste in music isn’t usually too bad – I mean, they’d have even more civil disorder on their hands if they put out Agadoo on endless loop – but it does slip every so often, and after all you can’t please everyone all the time.

The front door closed, the woman visibly relaxes. “Come far?” she asks.

“Nah, just Brixton way,” I reply. Vague obviously, but no point in lying. Either she’s legit, in which case I’m OK whatever I say, or she’s government, in which case the flat is has more bugs than a stray cat and they can cross-reference my identity with my real home address in seconds.

She grins, no doubt noticing my wariness. “Don’t worry, this place is clean. All offline. No-one can hear us.” Some classical piano music tinkles in the background, but not obtrusively. “Cuppa? Tea or coffee?”

“Got anything stronger?” I see her glance at a clock on the wall. “Joke,” I add quickly. “Tea please? Thanks.”

“Coming right up. I’m Sheila, by the way. Pleased to meet you. Take a seat.” Sheila may or may not be her real name, but it doesn’t matter, it’s just nice to have one. I perch on an armchair in the sitting room while she clinks around in the kitchen next door. I didn’t really want tea, but accepting the offer buys me a couple more minutes, time to collect my thoughts, compose myself, to look around me, alert to anything suspicious, anything that doesn’t look or feel right. I never know exactly what I’m looking for at these moments; like I said, you often get a feeling, a hunch. Or maybe something more obvious. I remember visiting a grimy semi in Surbiton just before last Christmas, letting Wizzard wash over me as I clocked the restricted literature left lying openly on the coffee table – Sounds of Oppression: How the Government Controls You (that’s been banned for years, and it was only the second time I’d even seen a copy in the flesh as it were); and next to it on the floor, a large Bible, brazen red lettering on the front cover, as if its owner literally doesn’t care, doesn’t keep things like that strictly to themselves and not shout about it, like you’re supposed to. And I remember thinking: this is odd, this isn’t quite right, you just don’t just leave stuff like that lying around, you’re not that brazen, not if you don’t know exactly who your visitors are. What if you were denounced? That’s always a risk – unless … unless you weren’t actually afraid of that. And who has no fear of being reported to the government? Right then I’d decided that this was all too obvious. Like someone had thought about what a deviant’s sitting room would look like, what sort of books you’d see. Too staged. And so I’d ghosted back out through the front door before the artfully dishevelled owner of the house (assuming he really was), the thin middle-aged man who looked a little old to be a goth, come to think of it, had returned from the kitchen with the two mugs of coffee and plate of digestives or whatever. I still don’t know to this day whether he was actually legit and just stupid, and I’ll never know, but I wasn’t hanging around to find out. The alarm bells were ringing too loudly in my ears.

But today, in Sheila’s flat, I don’t see anything so obviously amiss. Nothing sticking out, nothing screaming out: “I’m a dissident! I’m a bit dodgy! I really am, honest!” It all looks very neat and middle class and clean, subtly reassuring, and so I start to relax back into the armchair a little as the piano swells away in the background. I decide, though, that I’m not going to hang around for long. Cassie will fret if I’m out too late. Let’s see what this woman’s got, check it out, and then go.

So, as soon as Sheila returns and places my cup of tea on the table next to me, I ask her. “So … what’s so special then?”

Sheila nods, as if she was expecting the lack of small talk. Me cutting to the chase may be another good sign for her, like I’m wasting no time attempting to reassure her or anything. Not being overly-ingratiating, as anyone coached in this might be. She walks over to a cupboard next to the TV and pulls out a set of headphones. Wired, the old-fashioned type, but noise-cancelling. I wonder if they’re licensed – if not, then they’re the first evidence of deviance so far (well, after the ad in Darkchat, obviously). The long black cable snakes back from the headphones to what looks like a vintage hi-fi inside the cupboard. You don’t see many of those now. You get plenty of modern reproductions of course, fronts for various digital streaming devices, but this looks like it might really be one of the old analogue ones. If so then this really is offline, under the radar. Again, better have a license for that, I think, but I bet you haven’t.

She hands me the headphones and then sits on the sofa opposite me. “You won’t have heard anything like this before. It’s completely new.” She gives me full eye contact, but not a suspicious amount. Then she shrugs almost imperceptibly. “I know you probably hear that a lot. But trust me. It’s just …”

“Just what?”

“Are you ready for it? I mean – if you can’t stand it, please do take them off straight away. It’s fine. I won’t be offended. It’s not – it’s not for everyone, this stuff. OK?”

“Right. Yes, of course.” I smile quickly, but privately I’m a little irritated. What kind of schmuck does she think I am? I’m no newbie at this game. I’ve heard it all – original punk, acid house, sixteenth century chamber music, Mormon choir, thrash metal, ambient whale sounds, gangsta rap with lyrics that definitely wouldn’t pass the censors. Some stuff that’s barely music at all, more a jumble of sounds. And quite a lot, too much, of derivative trash, stuff that wasn’t worth the walk from the front door, never mind the traipse from Brixton. Some of it illegal, some disappointingly legal, some I couldn’t quite decide exactly where I’d stand if the police had suddenly come crashing in. Some of it startling, some toe-curling; some surprising, invigorating, thrilling, depressing, revelatory, soaring. Once or twice I’d been reduced to tears, quietly weeping, as if I’d been touched by something truly real. Something the government hadn’t touched, hadn’t approved, didn’t have their grimy fingerprints on. No-one had decided this was good for me, was OK for me to listen to. It was mine, I’d decided to try something off-message, just this time. And that, that choice, that chance was the important thing, even if (as had happened too many times) the music turned out to be rubbish, or even – as on one infamous occasion – exactly the same chuffing Katy Perry song that had been playing on the street outside a few minutes earlier.

I put on the headphones and feel the familiar cold prickle running up my spine and fizzing onto my scalp. All sound from the outside world is shut out and I’m in my own world now, listening to the music only I can hear. It’s subtle, a soft buzz, a hum. The beating of my heart in my ears. It’s quiet – I strain to hear more. But yes, there it is, a throbbing beat, a … what? This is clearly in the “more a jumble of sounds” category than conventional music. And yet there’s something there … it’s just something I can’t quite pin down. It’s … beautiful. But what else?

I shift in my chair. I’m aware of Sheila sitting opposite me, perfectly still. I don’t like anyone watching me at times like this, it’s distracting, but I don’t think she’s quite looking at me. The music rolls on – well, I say music, it’s … I struggle again to identify, to describe exactly what I’m hearing, to categorise, to put limits and markers around it. But it’s elusive. There’s no definite tune, but there’s a rhythm, a strange music underneath it all. It’s wild, and yet gentle. Untamed. Untouched. I know completely, with absolute clarity, that no government flunky has been anywhere near this. It’s too … pure. Any subliminals in this would be like thunderclaps, jarringly and nakedly exposed for what they are, and therefore stripped of all their cunning power.

I know this music is like nothing I’ve ever heard before, or not for a long time; and yet it’s also familiar, somehow. Definitely, in fact. Suddenly I’m remembering my childhood, sitting on my living room carpet, playing with a toy car, my mum singing along to Duran Duran as she does the ironing. That song comes back to me, echoing in my head – and then others follow, slowly at first and then in a steadily growing torrent. I’m hearing Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins as I cry after Emma dumped me in the sixth form. I’ve heard that song a couple of times since, piped through speakers on a railway platform or my car stereo, but now it means more to me than it has for so long. Possibly more since that sad time so many years ago. In fact, this music I’m listening to now, in Sheila’s armchair, seems to be made up of all sorts of other music, songs I heard many years ago, recalled now with dizzying force. I’m remembering so much. I close my eyes and take a shuddering breath. I don’t know what this stuff is, but it’s powerful. It should be a mess, an unlistenable, chaotic nightmare – like an extension of that brief moment when you’re leaving a shop and for a couple of seconds the music behind you clashes unpleasantly with the music coming from the street ahead of you. And yet, this just isn’t like that at all.

It’s … it’s like it’s a music that encompasses and expresses all my memories, all the music I’ve ever heard, and there’s time and space and freedom for it to blossom and grow and breathe. I can remember, and my own mind can choose and ponder and skip between my thoughts and memories, with nothing else bearing and pressing down from the outside, nothing else dictating what I must listen to, what I remember, and no-one else knowing or monitoring or evaluating my choices. My own truly private playlist. This music is not – how can I put it? It’s not manipulating. It’s standing back and giving me back myself.

But there’s something else again. My mind goes back to last spring, when we suffered a rare power outage in our neighbourhood. The music stopped, and it was maybe thirty seconds before the local back-up generators kicked in and the speakers blared back into life. There, on the street, in that yawning musicless interval, a man near me had broken into a hoarse, flustered song to fill the gap. And I remember being close to panic myself. A woman across the road clapped her hands on her ears, and even from several metres away I’d caught her expression, a mask of blank terror. What I’d heard then – it was like a bucket of icy water thrown over my head. I was literally shaking by the time Simple Minds came to my rescue. But I’d heard it anyway. Then quickly forgotten, of course. Why remember? No-one talked about it afterwards. What would be the point? If you stub your toe or bang your knee, it hurts like hell for a brief flash of time, but then it subsides and you don’t dwell on it, do you? You go on with your life, grateful that the pain has passed and you settle back into everyday comfort with a sigh.

But that sound, when the power failed: it’s like what I’m hearing now.

And then I understand. And for some reason, I remember something Robbie told me during the last General Election campaign – how many years ago? Must be eight. No, nine. Since then of course we’ve had the State of Emergency, the Second and Third Pandemics, the Baltic War. Everyone remembers the government’s election campaign theme music back then, that old Abba song … thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing, thanks for all the joy they’re bringing … not a bad song in a cheesy kind of way. The government can make you happy, they said. The government’s job is to make you happy, to help you cope. Music is the power, the key; and it needs to be fully exploited, its potential unleased, maximised, for the common good. And what did Robbie say? Something like: this is wrong, they’re taking something precious and powerful and free and sublime, and they’re going to use it against us, to anaesthetise us, to throw a comfort blanket over everyone and suffocate us. Because however great music is, if they take away the power to decide what we can listen to and when, then hey can make it malign, oppressive. They control it. They’ll have wrenched it from our hands. They want to weaponize music – yes, that’s the word he used, weaponize. I remember thinking how utterly ridiculous that sounded. How could music be wrong? The government won the election by a landslide, and within weeks they’d delivered on their promises – all the new speakers went up, all the miles of new cabling, the massive upgrade of wifi connectivity. You’ll never be out of earshot of the music, they promised. Wherever you are, you’ll hear it. And of course you can choose, in the privacy of your own homes, what to listen to, from the extensive menu of choices we give you.

It was indeed an extensive menu of choices. Pretty much any genre of music you can think of. Thousands of tracks at your fingertips. Music to control your feelings, a gloss of happiness over the sadness, a shot of tinny euphoria when you’re low. More and more anaesthetic, endlessly on tap, tune upon track upon song, too much and never enough. Except for the music I’m hearing now – that wasn’t available, that wasn’t on the menu. Not any more.

There’s a word to describe it. A word we rarely hear now, and when we do it’s usually a command, or a rebuke. An anomaly. A shameful word. A word from the wrong side of history. Something that has been denied its right to exist, refused its legitimacy, and become something no-one can choose any longer, the space they can’t let you have in case something else speaks into it. Until everyone’s forgotten it even exists, can no longer even comprehend it, the concept doesn’t compute. For the common good, it’s been banished, extinguished by the music.

Silence.

I don’t know how much time has passed when I slowly pull off the headphones. Sheila’s turned down the piano music to a barely legal whispering minimum, but it still hammers into my tender ears like nails. My eyes meet hers. She looks concerned, kind. Then she smiles. “Well. What did you think?”

“It was …” I smile back. “Thank you.” I feel like I’ve received a special gift, something precious and rare. Then, abruptly, crazily, I laugh. Then she starts laughing. And we’re both sitting there, cackling like maniacs after mainlining the most exhilarating drug that ever existed, tears streaming down our cheeks. Wait till I tell Cassie, I think, and immediately understand that I probably never can.

“Do you see?” gasps Sheila. “Do you see now?”