Tape 2-B: YES MANCHESTER!

A favourite thing about living in Manchester is PEACE FM... one of the best radio stations around. Broadcasting out of Hulme it is full community radio vibes all the time... my favourite is Sunday afternoon from 4-6pm when BRUTUS FEELGOOD gets on the wheels of steel and cranks up 2 hours of heavy heavy STREET SOUL... rewinds a plenty, shout outs to all the boys on lockdown in Strangeways and endless plugs for his sunday night session at The Pineapple in Gorton (me and Randy Marsh gonna get a crew together and head down there one week ya know)...

ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE PINEAPPLE says Brutus

Anyways this Street Soul sound is something special...  Here in Manchester, when Moss Side was having the worst of times, all the crack and the guns and shit, at the parties it was this super sickly sweet music they were listening to... That's a WILD combination.... 

Tammy Payne - "Free" - BIG tune on Gooch Close... crazy...

I have been getting HEAVILY into Street Soul courtesy of Brutus' show and then digging some of the old Broadway Sound mixtapes from those Moss Side parties... it's an interesting "genre" is Street Soul, it's a bit ambiguous like Balearic but doesn't have the militant beard angle (yet) so you can pretty much call anything you like street soul and nobody will say you're wrong... from what I can discern there are a few key rules:

• sort of 1985 onwards but defo more geared toward 88-93
• UK productions mostly... occasional US jam allowed if not too macho (Jellybean is OK)
• proto hip-hop beats at all times pretty much, swung if possible. There can never be enough 808 cowbell. It's like the UK New Jack Swing sort of.
• VOCALS!!!! Sweet as sugar please
• work those ROMplers... synth sax, synth strings, synth piano - no real instruments allowed (apart from loose ends guitar licks - in fact anything Carl McIntosh touches is fine fine fine fiiiiiiiinnnnnneeee)
• (most importantly) THESE TRACKS ARE FOR THE LADIES.

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