This Thursday (September 11th 2025), I’ll be heading to Leicester to take part in a rare panel discussion about bleep & bass and its wider impact within British bass music culture – a topic I of course explored extensively in my book on the subject, Join The Future: Bleep Techno and the Birth of British Bass Music. It’s part of a season of Arts Council-supported events at LCB Depot, Leicester’s creative industries hub, put on by R10.EMS and Kontakt.

I’m delighted to have been asked to take part for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it’s a subject close to my heart; while I may now have switched focus, research wise, the story of bleep & bass and the role played by music communities in Yorkshire and the Midlands in particular, is one I never tire of shouting about. Secondly, the make-up of the panel is an intriguing one, with yours truly being joined on stage by Mark Iration of Iration Steppas and (during the bleep era) Ital Rockers. long-serving local DJ Mastersafe, who at various points in time has held residencies with Total Kaos, Dreamscape and Miss Moneypenny’s (a bastion of Midlands clubbing for many years) and host Steve Vibronics.

Thirdly, and finally, I’m also very interested in Leicester’s own dance music story and the role Jamaican soundsystem culture has played in that. There were a handful of makers of ‘proper’ bleep (or bleep adjacent) records who hailed from Leicester or the surrounding area, though te most famous – David Duncan AKA Ability II – was immersed in the Leeds scene at the time (and made his peerless contribution to the sound’s evolution, ‘Pressure’, while living in the city).

I’m aware, of course, of the size and significance of the city’s Caribbean community, the vibrancy of the jazz-dance/footwork/breakin’ community in the city in the 1980s, and the wider significance of soundsystem culture in this part of the East Midlands – though not how it all connected. The city’s Bliss club is also one of the few to have been celebrated with a bleep-influenced record made in its honour – ‘A Place Called Bliss’ by Cyclone, AKA Oadby resident Geoff Hibbert.

It promises to be a very interesting discussion. The event starts at 6pm, with an after-party later in the evening until midnight, featuring Mastersafe at the controls. The organisers have made it a “pay what you feel” event; you can get tickets here.