“I wasn’t actually that aware of the musical heritage we were dealing with in Sheffield up until I was thirteen or fourteen,” mumbles Toddla T, three and a half minutes into South Yorks Vol. 1. “When you’re young you don’t necessarily see what’s on your doorstep…”
He’s absolutely right, of course, and it’s for this reason that South Yorks Vol. 1 is such a revelation. Sheffield underground heroes Kid Acne and Slick Dixxx have taken it upon themselves to map the sonic contours of the area for the benefit of the short-sighted. That they broadly succeed proves both their ability as musical commentators, and the strength of a great undefined local aesthetic. This, if you like, is their Doorstep Allstars Volume 1.
Acne and Dixxx, however, have little interest in charting Sheffield popular music history in Jaguar Skills-style chronology. Nor even do they seem to be particularly concerned with sticking to the geographical boundaries they have set themselves; whilst this forty-minutes-plus smash and grab is punctuated by prime appearances from South Yorkshire royalty, the space in between is filled with detours to Birmingham (with rave pioneers Altern-8,) Barcelona (via the squelching electro of former Sheffield-dwellers Fitzroy North) and transatlantic links, with Sheffield-based artist Mu referencing Paris Hilton of all people.
The track list, then, isn’t a bare bones showcase for local talent or an attempt to capture the guitar-based Sheffield of the popular imagination. At its core is “electronics, electronics, electronics”; it draws a fuzzy line through Warp, bassline, early Human League, the post-punk experiments of the late 1970s and what T calls “this electronic Sheffield clangy thing.”
What eventually emerges is a vague ethos based around DIY sounds, and a kind of minimalist energy not quite matched anywhere else. The whole caboodle is topped off by Beth Ditto and Jarvis Cocker’s NME Awards cover of Heaven 17’s ‘Temptation’ – a wonderfully compelling mess.
South Yorks Vol. 1 is a lean and dynamic collection of noises that might just manage to flag down those to whom the appearance of Toddla T two years ago was a sudden, bewildering shaft of light in an otherwise dreary summer of new music. Those sounds you’ve been hearing? There’s plenty more where that came from.
The next South Yorks party will be held on Friday July 23rd @ Bungalows and Bears, Division St, Sheffield.