RETROSPECTIVE
Bleep (and bass)
Growing out of the north of England in the ’80s, this unique take on techno helped forge Britain’s dance music scene
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Music has always been a regional art form, with the likes of Detroit techno or Chicago house becoming shorthand for specific styles. Yorkshire, in the north of England, isn’t the obvious choice as a hotbed of electronic music, but in the late ’80s it played host to the birth of a microscene which was hugely important in the development of UK dance music.
A thriving subculture of hip-hop and electro existed in the UK by the mid ’80s, based around imported US records. Across the north of England in the late ’80s, breakdance crews began to discover the new sound of house and techno as records began to arrive in record shops alongside imported hip-hop and electro.