CityLife

House music is back - but where are the kids?

CUTLOOSE CROWD: Loves house music

HERE at CityLife’s little club section, we’re as happy as a seagull with a chip. We’re darting around M1 with smiles on our faces that one would normally associate with a new found beau or an unexpected pay rise.

In fact, the key component of these good times is an achievement.  Two fingers flicked at the cultural norms of the day - that’s right - we’re coming out of the closet.

Hang on a second though. It’s not that sort of closet: we’re talking about a metaphorical musical genre closet, and we’re pretty convinced that our peers are going to join us in this liberating march to the clubs too!

We have, fists punched high into the air, come out of the house music closet.

Detroit piano stab epic

And what was the catalyst for this breakthrough statement? It was a night in the Northern Quarter, in a particularly dirty basement, at a point where a dreamy Detroit piano stab epic was conjoined with an Italo-esque synthetic hi-hat so crystal clear that our ears physically pointed in the direction of the speaker stacks.

The night at which this momentous... moment happened was called Cutloose, the name itself symbolic, like an invite into some hovel of disrepute.

We knew we were being naughty. We should’ve been waxing lyrical in the corner of some nightspot pumping out ‘bass’ to The Kids, we should’ve been nodding in acknowledgement of someone’s strong juxtaposition of stonewashed denim and old school Nike.

It was Cutloose, however, that made us nod – and not just nod; we were gyrating, we were voguing, we were grooving (but not like ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ grooving, that’s what Mums do) - we were grooving to slow-mo house records, the vibrations slowly and salaciously massaging us into a place where everyone was happy and everyone was a friend.

Undeniable truths

Clichéd? Absolutely, but clichés are built on undeniable truths, this one being that Manchester has house music in its blood.

Among the drawn-out and yawn-inducing associations with post punk and baggy, there’s still a rivalry with London about which great city played the first Chicago track to English ears.

Whatever happened, us Mancs in particular played a massive role in moulding those repetitive beats into one of the biggest shifts ever seen in youth culture.

Perhaps it’s interesting that those young people who shocked their parents in the late 80s now make up the vast majority of patrons at Cutloose  – the club was full of thirty-somethings, the bouncers unlikely to have prompted a flash of a young ’un’s driving license the whole evening.

Clicks and whooshes

What we need is a little more age range in these house clubs, not just the remnants of the Electric Chair hierarchy. Manchester demands that The Kids get busy to Cutloose’s clicks and whooshes. Do you hear that, The Kids? Don’t be embarrassed, it’s only house music. 

While it’s dangerous to predict trends, house music and Manchester are going to embrace again soon, but on a bigger scale than what we see today.

You watch: the electro clubs will start playing house, the dubstep clubs will start playing house, the minimal clubs will start playing house.

We say house is no longer a taboo, it’s time to step out the closet.

Cutloose is back with a set from Theo Parrish on Friday 17 July. Check the link on the right for more details.