S. Noelle’s Reviews > Studio Electrophonique: The Sheffield space age, from The Human League to Pulp > Status Update

Dadaism provided an apt framework for Sheffield's outsider artists and primitive creatives to collaboratively transgress, provoke, and take the piss via their artistic pursuits.

Sound terrorism; The Future enters the past tense; DVA duo gets introduced.

Quite enjoying this so far, more than I expected. It really is about Sheffield at its heart, exploring the city and its artists from the Space Age on: a bunch of Clockwork kooks, traversing the brutalist and Ballardian cityscape to the bleeps and bloops of synthesizers and the industrial screech ‘n’ clank of the steelworks, set on painting a thick coat of glamour over its pervasive grimness.

Creative escapism as a response to the local dystopian drudge. Creation as liberation for the untrained, the amateur, the hobbyist - as a means of scrappy, DIY future-making.

Sheff Summer 3.0, INCOMING—!

“The star of this story is Sheffield” tells me we’re in good hands. Central to the music and overall scene is the cultural/geographical landscape it springs from—the ‘scenery’, if you will.