- Anyone who's ever been to Sankeys will have their own special (if somewhat addled) memories of that former mill in the Manchester backstreets. If I were to make a compilation that best summed up my nights there, it would be two CDs to be played simultaneously with a load of Mancunians babbling over the mix, to recreate the sensation of standing halfway up the stairs in the '90s (when the club was known as Sankeys Soap) where you could hear the music from both rooms while having over-excited conversations with your new best mates. Since then the club has had so many deaths and resurrections it's made Lazarus look lazy—from the grubby old Sankeys Soap to the glamorous Sankeys in 2006 to its recent reincarnation as a super-club empire, following its "indefinite hiatus" in 2013, with new outposts in New York and Ibiza.
Now, you're not a real super-club brand unless you've got your own compilation series and a big name resident, and the first disc of this 20th anniversary release seems to be an attempt to push Darius Syrossian, the current captain of Sankeys' Tribal Sessions night, into the big league (after years of playing second fiddle to Steve Lawler at ViVA Warriors). Composed entirely of the Leeds artist's own unreleased productions, it's essentially a Syrossian solo album, but recording it live at the club cannily plays to the strengths of a man much more accomplished as a DJ than as a producer. If this were released as an album, it would be much more obvious how derivative Syrossian's sound can be, with its rolling tribal percussion, gyrating basslines, synth stabs and cut-up vocals. And yet, blended together like this in their natural environment, these tracks clearly do the job they were designed for, and might have you whooping as eagerly at home as the crowd you can hear in the club.
If the first disc contains tunes you've never heard before, the second collection has plenty you definitely have—it's packed with Sankeys anthems. Possibly too many. As irrefutably great as the likes of Green Velvet's "Flash," Kerri Chandler's "Bar A Thym" and Gus Gus's "David" may be, they can now sound as rinsed out as the clothes you sweated into the night you first heard them. Unlike those threads, however, Sankeys is far from wearing thin.
TracklistCD1
01. Green Velvet - Bigger Than Prince (Darius Syrossian Remix)
02. Darius Syrossian - Celebration Of Life
03. Darius Syrossian - Fuel To The Fire
04. Darius Syrossian - Danielle
05. James Barnsley - Acid Tambourine (Darius Syrossian Remix)
06. Darius Syrossian & Hector Couto - Our Rhythm
07. Darius Syrossian & Sidney Charles - Another 5 Hours
08. Todd Terry - Bounce To The Beat (Darius Syrossian Remix)
09. Darius Syrossian & DJ Sneak - Power To The People
10. Pierre Codarin - Wear It Loose (Darius Syrossian Remix)
11. Darius Syrossian - Fail Of The Smiling Assassin
12. Darius Syrossian - Motivar
13. Darius Syrossian - Truth Prevails
14. Darius Syrossian - Rise
15. Darius Syrossian - Thank You David
16. Darius Syrossian - Jazztime
CD2
01. Thick Dick - Welcome To The Jungle
02. Deep Creed '94 - Can You Feel It (Shell Toe Remix)
03. DJ Duke - Blow Your Whistle
04. Gemini - Swimmin Wit' Sharks
05. Loco Dice - Definition
06. Cobblestone Jazz - Dump Truck
07. Mendo - Aventuras
08. Argy - Love Dose (Luciano Remix)
09. Kerri Chandler - Bar A Thym
10. Minilogue - Animals (Luciano Remix)
11. Green Velvet - Flash (Danny Tenaglia's Nitrous Oxide Remix)
12. Phonique - The Red Dress feat. Die Elfen (Tiefschwarz Remix)
13. Gus Gus - David (King Britt's Underwater Remix)
14. Flash Brothers - Hazy March