Music
Graham Massey, founder member of the Manchester dance titans, picks 10 seminal electronic records that transformed the way we dance.
Most histories of the acid house scene start down south – with Danny Rampling, Nicky Holloway and Paul Oakenfold's revelatory trip to Ibiza, and the foundation of London club nights like Shoom and Trip. But the North was already wise to acid house. The latest imports from Detroit and Chicago were already making it to more clued-in Northern dancefloors, and come 1988 a variety of groups across Manchester, Sheffield and various satellite towns were making a bold new electronic music that was certainly inherited from Stateside acid house, but boasted a new UK sensibility.
One of those groups was 808 State. A Manchester trio formed by Graham Massey, Martin Price and "A Guy Called" Gerald Simpson and named after the Roland TR-808 drum machine, their debut album Newbuild perfectly captured the nascent, hardware-powered acid sound, while their 1989 single Pacific State became a foundation stone of the chill-out genre. In 2005, Newbuild was re-released on Aphex Twin's Rephlex Records, Richard D James declaring that 808 State "was the next step after Chicago acid, and as much as I loved that, I could relate much better to 808 State… it seemed colder and more human at the same time."
We were all inspired by the new electronic music from Chicago and Detroit, and then local records started to grow in the soil of the nightlife
808 State are true raver survivors, with a seventh album – Transmission Suite – on shelves and a 2020 tour on sale now. Today, though, Graham Massey is looking back to the seminal acid house and electronic records that came from Northern England throughout the rave years. "There was a lot of talk about a North/South divide," he recalls. "It all seems like a weak argument now as the country and indeed the world became in sync with these 'repetitive beats'. We were all inspired by the new electronic music from Chicago and Detroit, and then local records started to grow in the soil of the nightlife. Here are some that I remember sprouting up in the grim North at the time."
1. Baby Ford – Oochy Koochy
"One of the first local big tunes was Oochy Coochie by Baby Ford. Peter Ford hailed from Bolton as did 808 State’s Martin Price. I expect they sometimes met on the train into Manchester and discussed the poor translation employed in the Roland TB-303 manual at the time. This was a big Hacienda tune and a hardy annual."
2. Stakker – Humanoid
"I remember meeting two guys calling themselves Stakker in late '87/ early '88. They were producing visuals for a late night MTV pitch using a video fairlight machine in a flat in Hulme. They were mooching for some freaky acid sounds. Brian Dougans, the music side of the outfit, found himself on Top Of The Pops with a track called Humanoid. He turned up shortly after to play live at a rave in Middleton – I say a rave but it was like a function room above a shopping precinct."
3. 808 State – Flow Coma
"Flow Coma is a track off 808 State’s first album, Newbuild, recorded in a weekend in January 1988 down in the basement at Spirit Studios on Tariff Street in Manchester. It was mostly recorded live to two-track tape plucked from a skip at the BBC on Oxford Road, and self-released through the Eastern Bloc record shop.
"We personally gave John Peel a copy on one of his frequent visits to the shop, and he helped spread the word around the country. The group was originally called State 808 with A Guy Called Gerald, Martin Price and myself. The album art – by Factory Records' other great designers Johnson & Panas – was ambiguous enough to read it both ways. People seemed to choose the other way. The record is pre-computer and features mostly Roland equipment – three Roland SH-101 synths, 303, 808 and a 606… you do the maths."
4. A Guy Called Gerald – Tranquility On Phobos
"Also around that same time, Gerald [Simpson, A Guy Called Gerald] released an album on Rham Records called Hot Lemonade. I’m not sure if it was on the back of Voodoo Ray or just before, but it’s the same production team as his hit single with Aniff Akinola and Colin Thorpe, which was recorded in a pokey little studio called Moonraker, behind a petrol station in Longsight, Manchester. I remember hearing this track on Steve Barker’s On The Wire radio show at the time. A listener who worked on oil rigs requested it saying he had a sci-fi epiphany with it as he "'coptered in" at work."
5. Us – Born In The North
"Another one of Gerald’s works from the late '90s. Back then he lived in the infamous Hulme Crescents – these huge curved council flats. On the same landing lived artist and songwriter Edward Barton. Ed had converted his council flat into a Hansel & Gretel-style log cabin using railway sleepers. He penned an accapella record called It’s A Fine Day for Cherry Red, which was later sampled by Opus 3, and then sampled by Kylie Minogue. Back then everything was a bit hand to mouth. All kinds of artistic collaborations occurred in the crescents, and Born In The North Is one of the best. Again, this was recorded under the production team of Aniff & Colin as Chapter & The Verse, and featuring Viv Dixon on vocals. Recorded at Out Of The Blue Studio in Ancoats, Manchester – so many records came from that dingy little cesspit, now luxury flats.
6. Hypnotone – Dream Beam
"There was always a queue for the studio at Tariff Street, as you were winding up a session. Always someone in the hallway loading in – it was quite a social centre. Hypnotone was a project by Tony Martin. Tony was one of those dudes that always had the latest gear… early Apple computers, a mobile phone, a Casio watch that could scan documents. Tony had had a group with Debbie Ellis and Carol Morley called TOT – my flatmate had put them on at The Lesser Free Trade Hall supporting a reading by [feminist author] Kathy Acker. They had borrowed New Order’s Emulator sampler – we were all very jealous as they loaded up floppy discs between numbers. Tony was future proof! His partner in Hypnotone was Martin Mitler, later of Interstella. Creation Records put the records out."
7. K Klass – Into The Night
"The other great social centre for the musically minded was Martin Price’s Eastern Bloc record store on Oldham Street, Manchester. The counter top was like his pulpit where he could espouse his musical passions and people who were brave enough would come for A&R advice nervously holding their primitive electronic cassette demos. One such band from Chester was Inter State – it was decided that Martin and I would produce an EP, again to be released via the shop. They were persuaded to change the name as it was too similar to ours, so they became K Klass. This is a track from that first EP recorded at the slightly more upmarket Square One studios in Bury. They later had a number one with Rhythm Is A Mystery. We still run into them now in the studios around town."
8. Autechre – Glitch
"A bit further east of Bury was another ex-mill-town called Rochdale. All of these post industrial centres had studios that had dated from the '70s. Suite 16 – then owned by Peter Hook – had been Cargo Studios. I guess the cheap rent/rates fed both studio and rave needs. One band that came from Rochdale was the mighty Autechre – two young hip-hop/electro heads who started putting their own spin on the technology. I remember running in to them in the centre of Manchester and being quizzed about tech gear. They also came in to play some stuff on the 808 radio show quite early on. There’s some great footage of them doing an early gig at Hippos in '91 – a glitzy chrome and neon megaplex in Middleton that’s featured in Ken Loach’s film Raining Stones from 1993."
9. LFO – Freak
"As the studios around Manchester began to get pretty busy in the early '90s, 808 State would find themselves block booking studio time further afield like Liverpool, Stoke and Sheffield. FON Studios in Sheffield was a second home for a while – the staff were great and so was the city. Warp had an office upstairs and The Human League lived down the corridor. We would often be jointly loading cases of synths into the loading bay at the same time and getting all nerdy. Again, sometimes you would be waiting for an overnight session to clear before you could set up.
"The 'studio gas' would roll out of the heavy sealed studio doors – a mix of smoke, BO and cold pizza. Sometimes, LFO – two lads who were our stable mates on Tommy Boy Records in the US – would emerge blinking into the light. We had a few nights out and ended up separately producing some girl from Iceland – she came to FON a couple of times. Army Of Me and Modern Things were tracks that came out on her Post album."
10. Sweet Exorcist – Testone
"FON Studios was a hub for the Sheffield/Warp scene. Robert Gordon was always trying to get his cutting lathe working. DJ Parrot and Richard Kirk made this early bleep anthem – such a huge record that put Warp in our consciousness. Mark Brydon and Róisín Murphy were cooking up a little album in the smaller studio – they became Moloko. We had some artwork done by Designers Republic, who were just up the road in an office above Mr Modo records. We had put out an early 808 State record with Mr Modo under the name The Lounge Jays. Sheffield was Techno City!"
808 State's new album Transmission Suite is out now. Buy here
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