808 State

808 State formed in 1988 out of Eastern Bloc Records on Oldham Street – a shop that was as much a meeting point as a retail outlet. Graham Massey, Martin Price, and Gerald Simpson (before he became A Guy Called Gerald) started making tracks with cheap equipment and whatever they could get their hands on. The name came from the Roland TR-808 drum machine. The intent was clear from the start: this was machine music, made in Manchester, aimed at the dancefloor.

Newbuild in 1988 was raw acid house, recorded fast and cheap. Gerald left after that and the lineup shifted – Andrew Barker and Darren Partington came in. Ninety in 1989 had Pacific State, and that changed everything. That saxophone line – sampled, looped, stretched out over seven minutes of blissed-out electronics – crossed over from clubs to Radio 1 and into the top 10. It’s one of those tracks that still sounds right at 3am.

They weren’t just making records. 808 State were part of the fabric of Manchester’s late-80s scene – connected to the Hacienda, to Factory, to the network of producers and DJs who were building something new in warehouse spaces and basement clubs across the city. Ex:el in 1991 brought in guest vocalists including Bjork and Bernard Sumner. They were ambitious in a way that Manchester’s electronic scene hadn’t been before.

Massey is still active in Manchester, still producing. Eastern Bloc Records eventually closed its Oldham Street location but the legacy of that shop as a gathering point for Manchester’s electronic music community is hard to overstate. 808 State proved the city could innovate with synthesisers just as powerfully as with guitars.