Great music is born from a collision of societal and political change. This series explores the origin stories of some of the UK's most vital musical movements.

In this episode, we visit Sheffield...

The story of Jive Turkey and Warp Records is the story of Sheffield in the late 1980s. An industrial city in decline, its empty, industrial spaces were being turned into illegal party zones, inspiring Winston Hazel, DJ Parrot, George Evelyn and Kevin Harper to record the city's earliest techno tracks.

In 1989, George and Kevin heard British electro tracks such as A Guy Called Gerald's 'Voodoo Ray' and it inspired them to drop one of their own. The result was 'Dextrous' - an early classic in the bleep techno genre. They pressed their own white-label single and dropped it off at local record shops. One of those was Fon, a Sheffield indie retailer run by Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell. The pair asked George and Kevin if they could release the track on their recently-established label, Warp. It was to be Warp's second-ever release. The first was 'The Track with No Name', an absolute classic of the genre. The third track would be, 'Testone' by Sweet Exorcist.

The economic climate at the time created an environment in which there was nothing to lose, and this allowed Sheffield's distinctive voice to emerge. Without the idiosyncrasy of Warp Records, it's unlikely we'd have the equally distinctive Sheffield acts that followed...

Interviews include Winston Hazel, DJ Parrot, George Evelyn of Nightmares on Wax, Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic and Steve Beckett of Warp Records.

Producer: Victoria McArthur
Narrator: Johny Pitts
Researcher: Juliet Conway
Sound mix: Lee McPhail Show less