Disco, jazz and frogs doing techno: Cosmic Slop, the Leeds club night resisting gentrification | Music
By 2013, the career of British producer Floating Points was reaching new heights: he was regularly DJing at huge nightlife institutions such as Warehouse Project and Fabric and was travelling overseas. But when he was invited to play at Cosmic Slop, a 200-capacity party tucked away in a former brass and iron works in Leeds, he knew he had to go. “Word was circulating: ‘you’ve gotta go and check out the system’,” he recalls, referencing the now-legendary hand-built speaker rig, revered by underground heroes such as Theo Parrish and Bradley Zero. Eventually, he made the trip and pledged to return before his set had even finished. He’s now played an estimated 30 times: “After all the years of DJing, it’s one of the places I long to go back to.”
This tiny northern club night has made a strong impression on many since it started in 2009, and not just for its sound system. What was supposed to be a one-off fundraiser quickly caught on and became beloved for its pairing of great music with community action. Each party is run in support of the resident charity at Cosmic Slop’s venue: Hope House – MAP provides alternative education for West Yorkshire kids at risk of exclusion from the mainstream school system. During the week, the venue runs workshops and classes in the adjacent rooms. “That’s the strange thing about Slop, it’s one of the best clubs in the world but it’s actually just a party to support a charity that’s doing really important work,” says Floating Points, real name Sam Shepherd. “It’s a win-win for everyone.”
But in 2017, Cosmic Slop faced the threat of closure as the Grade II-listed building was put up for sale, to be turned into flats. “We could’ve just lost it all,” says co-founder Tom Smith. “It’s got consistently harder for spaces like this to exist, and the kind of the support we offer for young people has got harder and harder to provide.”
There’s a real devotion from both sides of the booth: high-profile DJs, including Four Tet, Mr Scruff and Caribou, play for free in order to maximise the funds raised, while each party prompts queues along the otherwise nondescript street before the guest is even announced. By 11.30pm, the door staff have to operate a one-in one-out policy. But despite the exclusivity and the audiophile set-up, it’s far from a stiff, chin-stroking atmosphere. With curtains and lampshades framing the room, fresh fruit available at the DIY bar and a team of infectiously friendly staff, it could almost be mistaken for someone’s living room.
“It’s like the antithesis of everything commercial in club culture,” says Gilles Peterson, who first played at Cosmic Slop in 2017. “You walk into certain places and you can just see the love, care and attention that the promoters and organisers put into it. It rubs off on to the people and so you transfer immediately into that vibe as the DJ. That is the perfect scenario for me.”
The open music policy means that punters can hear anything from rare jazz and disco to modern trap music, threaded together by mood rather than genre or BPM. “On a big system like that, and with an open minded crowd that have come knowing what it’s all about, I can play all the stuff I really wanna play,” says Shepherd. “I like playing music that was designed for dancefloors but I also really like playing music that was definitely not designed for dancefloors.” When I ask him to elaborate, he reels off a list that includes strange folk and percussion, Brazilian soap opera opening sequences and a particularly rhythmic recording of frogs. “It sounds like techno, it’s crazy,” he laughs.
In the style of Detroit legends 3 Chairs and parties like The Loft, it’s not rare to hear a track from start to finish, crackles and all, before moving on to the next. The long-championed approach feels increasingly rare in contemporary clubbing, which often favours big drops and quick blends. “What if the tune has a beautiful intro? You could skip to the beat and mix it from there but you might miss the best bit,” says Smith. “It’s a different way of digesting the music.”
Having weathered the threat of redevelopment, Smith is optimistic. After a two-year fundraising campaign, MAP bought Hope House in 2019, ensuring a future for both the classrooms and the club. This month, the team are launching a new label offshoot, with an all-in house production line, from the recording to the dubplate cutting and sleeve printing. The inaugural releases will be by long-term friend and supporter Four Tet, including a cassette edition of his digital-only record 871 and, later this year, a limited edition run of his new album, complete with custom artwork by MAP students. “There’s a real opportunity to share what we’ve got with a lot of people,” says Smith.
It’s a reminder of what grassroots clubbing can provide when the resources are there. “It’s difficult to keep these things going because they live off energy, and energy when there isn’t that much income is always hard to maintain after a few years,” says Peterson. “So it’s really important that places like that keep getting the new energy … to keep the walls shiny and the lights bright.”
