Music Arcades: Various: Warp Influences

The first term I was in Sheffield, autumn 1986, a group of us went several times to jazz gigs at the Leadmill on Wednesday nights (in the days when they weren't just an indie club venue). We saw Courtney Pine and Don Cherry and others I forget. The jazz gigs started and finished early, and were followed by a club night. By hanging around in the bar, we were able to stay for the club night without paying a further entrance fee. At the beginning of the club session, they played some incredible music. I guess this was the early days of Chicago House in England. I had no idea about the terms, but I recognised the layered approach familiar from Steve Reich, harnessed to drum machines.

The most exciting music was always on early in the night. I longed to dance to it, but early on there were literally just two or three black guys on the floor doing amazing dances. No way was I going to make myself look like a twat next to them. But by the time the dancefloor was more full, the music was more anonymous.

I can't be sure, but I'd lay a bet that some of the music I heard and loved in the Leadmill in 1986 is on this album. The Warp label began three years later, and this was the music that inspired them to get started. Not all of it has aged well, but tracks like Model 500's still sound great.

This compilation came out in 1999, to mark the tenth anniversary of Warp as a record label, though I think the Warp record shop may have started a year or two earlier. Warp were Sheffield's big creative business success story in the 1990s, alongside maybe the Gremlin games company and The Designers Republic (who regularly designed Warp album covers). Warp moved to London, Gremlin was sold to the French, and only TDR remain exactly as they've always been.

I met Rob Mitchell from Warp a few times. In connection with this album, I remember sitting with him in the Banner Cross, one snowy Friday evening in January 1996, after a meeting at Fretwell-Downing. David Kay got him on the subject of the history of dance music, and I remember him saying how important A Guy Called Gerald was — and he's included on this album. Myself, the main thing I spoke to Rob about that evening was girlfriend advice — his was sound.