Sheffield has come on a long way over the past 20 years. England's one-time "City of Steel" was, in the dying days of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's era, a pretty grim place to be, its factories shuttered and its high streets desolate. Today, it presents a cleaner, more affluent — and, some might say, less interesting — face to the world.
When Warp Records held their 20th anniversary party there in September this year, the venue was an old steelworks on the outskirts of town. A screening of work produced by sister company Warp Films was held at Park Hill Flats, the Brutalist apartment blocks that city residents uncharitably liken to a row of sardine tins. The settings served as a reminder of the environment in which the label first developed, run out of a record shop on the now-fashionable Division Street.
"When we first started, [Sheffield] was very run-down and industrial," says Warp cofounder Steve Beckett, speaking over the phone from the label's London office (Warp's other founder, Rob Mitchell, passed away from cancer in 2001). "It's definitely got a different feel to it now."