{
  "slug": "bleep-techno",
  "name": "Bleep Techno",
  "aliases": [
    "bleep",
    "bleep and bass",
    "yorkshire bleep",
    "warp"
  ],
  "description": "Sheffield and Leeds, 1989: Detroit's sequenced tones stripped to a few sine bleeps and dropped over sub-bass borrowed from Jamaican sound systems. The first British techno that sounded like nowhere in America.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "Sheffield and Leeds, England",
    "year": 1989
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "detroit-techno",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/detroit-techno/",
      "inherited": "The palette. Yorkshire producers were buying Transmat and KMS imports and copying the clean sequenced tones, then finding they had no interest in the strings or the science fiction."
    },
    {
      "genre": "dancehall",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/dancehall/",
      "inherited": "The weight, and the reason it sounds British. Leeds and Sheffield had Jamaican sound systems in the same halls, and bleep is Detroit melody arranged for a rig built to shake a room."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 118,
    "max": 135
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-31",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/bleep-techno/",
  "trackCount": 6,
  "curatedBy": [],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "lfo--lfo",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/lfo--lfo/",
      "title": "LFO",
      "artist": "LFO",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/lfo/",
      "year": 1990,
      "label": "Warp",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A test tone, a bassline and their own name spoken over it, and it reached number twelve in the national chart. Nothing else on the radio that year was remotely this austere.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "warp",
          "name": "Warp",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/warp/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/LFO%20LFO",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=s-1Y2EqThyQ",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "forgemasters--track-with-no-name",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/forgemasters--track-with-no-name/",
      "title": "Track With No Name",
      "artist": "Forgemasters",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/forgemasters/",
      "year": 1989,
      "label": "Warp",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Warp's first release, funded by an enterprise grant, named after a Sheffield steelworks. The label that later signed Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada starts exactly here.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-eighties",
          "name": "The Eighties",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/the-eighties/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "warp",
          "name": "Warp",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/warp/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Forgemasters%20Track%20With%20No%20Name",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ys9e2m0LTs",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "unique-3--the-theme",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/unique-3--the-theme/",
      "title": "The Theme",
      "artist": "Unique 3",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/unique-3/",
      "year": 1989,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Bradford, and usually credited as the first bleep record. The bass is doing something no Detroit producer had asked a bassline to do.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Unique%203%20The%20Theme",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=hwyVNDIhxzM",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "sweet-exorcist--testone",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/sweet-exorcist--testone/",
      "title": "Testone",
      "artist": "Sweet Exorcist",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/sweet-exorcist/",
      "year": 1990,
      "label": "Warp",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Richard H. Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire with DJ Parrot, making a record out of calibration tones. Sheffield's industrial past and its dance present in one object.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "warp",
          "name": "Warp",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/warp/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Sweet%20Exorcist%20Testone",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ooD4plDsO60",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "nightmares-on-wax--dextrous",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/nightmares-on-wax--dextrous/",
      "title": "Dextrous",
      "artist": "Nightmares on Wax",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/nightmares-on-wax/",
      "year": 1989,
      "label": "Warp",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Leeds, and considerably warmer than its neighbours here. George Evelyn was already writing tunes while everyone else was still testing speakers.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "twice-over",
          "name": "Twice Over",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/twice-over/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "warp",
          "name": "Warp",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/warp/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Nightmares%20on%20Wax%20Dextrous",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=YiTL_HptsiY",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "tricky-disco--tricky-disco",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/tricky-disco--tricky-disco/",
      "title": "Tricky Disco",
      "artist": "Tricky Disco",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/tricky-disco/",
      "year": 1990,
      "label": "Warp",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Silly, insistent, and a top twenty hit. Bleep's brief pop moment, before the whole scene sped up into hardcore and left the tempo behind.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Tricky%20Disco%20Tricky%20Disco",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=XG6CTs6cPQ4",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}