Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass
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Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass or Yorkshire Techno was a short-lived and very localised musical movement centred on the northern English cities of Bradford & Leeds in West Yorkshire and Sheffield in South Yorkshire in 1989-1991.
The sound was characterised by harsh, funky minimalism, speaker-breaking sub-bass and electronic bleeps or other futuristic sounds. Unlike the present-day English techno scene, this early Yorkshire movement was inner-city, multi-racial and aggressive, and went on to influence groundbreaking London breakbeat acts such as Shut Up and Dance and The Scientist and later jungle, which upon listening today it shares many similarities.
The first record of the genre was probably "The Theme" by Bradford's Unique 3 in 1989, although Leeds outfit LFO's "LFO" was being played on white label at the Warehouse in Leeds for several months before being released on Sheffield's Warp Records in 1990. Leeds's Nightmares on Wax next realeased "Dextrous" on Warp Records in 1990. The label went on to release the club anthem "Testone" by Sweet Exorcist (DJ Parrot, and Richard Kirk of Sheffield avant-garde experimentalists Cabaret Voltaire), a track that went on to define the Yorkshire sound, and also the rather silly "Tricky Disco" by Tricky Disco. These were followed by a string of releases on the short-lived Leeds label Bassic Records, including the awesome "Ital's Anthem" by Ital Rockers, a Chapeltown dub reggae band diversifying into techno, and Juno's "Soul Thunder", an understated track now recognised as a techno classic.
With Nightmares on Wax's "Aftermath", released on Warp records in 1991, the scene peaked. "Aftermath" now sounds like a blueprint for jungle music, and was very ahead of its time. But the music scene in England was changing, as piano house anthems took over northern clubs and the breakbeat hardcore scene grew in London and the West Midlands. Bassic Records folded in 1991, taking most of their acts with them, though Ital Rockers went back to the Leeds dub reggae scene in the mid 1990s. LFO, intelligent electronica producers at heart, released one last Bleeps and Bass anthem "We Are Back" - probably the genre's last track - in 1991 before continuing to a successful career in techno. Nightmares on Wax abandoned house music / drum & bass altogether, going on to make cut-up, instrumental hip hop, and were described by Mo Wax Records's James Lavelle as a big influence on the 1990s trip hop scene. Sadly, as with most '90 - '91 proto-jungle acts (save 4 Hero), they failed to shape the pioneeering sound they had helped to create.