As it celebrates 20 years at the cutting edge of British club culture, the Manchester venue links up with Apple Music to spotlight Overmono and Spatial Audio.
“Under construction since 2006. Twenty years in Manchester. Two decades of dreaming. This only exists because of you. Thank you.”
The closing words of The Warehouse Project’s anniversary film land with a certain weight. Created by director Leigh Powis and written alongside Lisa Clarkson, the film is soundtracked by Bakey’s aptly titled “Tribute” and threaded with voices from the dancefloor — a collective love letter to the nights, the people and the city that have shaped the institution over two decades.
Within those walls, friendships have been forged, careers in music sparked into existence, and nights lived that will stay with people long after the lights come up. “Whether it be the wind, the rain or the hail, for those twelve weeks it’s where Manchester congregates to dance their fucking arse off,” one voice declares in the film. It’s a sentiment that cuts straight to the heart of what WHP has become: less a monument to Manchester’s musical past than a living, breathing institution, still being written on the dancefloor.
Rather than trade on the mythology of Manchester’s past, WHP has taken its cues from the spirit that built it: restless, uncompromising and always moving forward. The Haçienda looms large over the city’s musical heritage, an almost impossible act to follow, but over the past twenty years, WHP has forged its own identity – continually championing artists, DJs and promoters pushing the city’s sound into uncharted territory. “Manchester’s never given a fuck what anyone else does really,” local musician and DJ Mike Pickering once said. It’s an ethos that WHP has arguably taken one step further: not simply refusing to follow the crowd, but continually finding ways to stay ahead of it.
As The Warehouse Project marks its monumental 20th anniversary, Overmono bring their Pure Devotion World Tour to Depot Mayfield. Welsh brothers Tom and Ed Russell have built a sound from breakbeat, UK garage and rave that feels at home on a club floor but has travelled well beyond it. From Glastonbury’s West Holts and Boomtown to Alexandra Palace, they’ve taken their sonic maxims to bigger stages without losing sight of where they came from. It’s a fitting return to Manchester, a city whose own dance music legacy has been shaped by artists looking forward rather than back.
One of the most interesting aspects of the anniversary is Apple Music’s involvement through Club Live, which extends beyond simply broadcasting the night. On 30th October, Overmono and Andy C’s sets were made available globally via Apple Music Club Radio, free and without a subscription. Recorded in Spatial Audio, the performances recreate the depth, atmosphere and energy of Depot Mayfield, bringing listeners closer to the club environment and giving them a sense of being on the dancefloor themselves. For an institution so rooted in physical experience, it’s a way to reach new audiences without losing what makes WHP special. Apple Music wants to be more than a sticker on the culture; it wants to support the scenes and artists shaping dance music without simply commodifying the culture it draws from.
For the anniversary season, Overmono feels like an entirely fitting headline act. Tom and Ed Russell have spent the past decade making music that draws on the UK sounds they grew up around, while finding their own way through them. Their Pure Devotion World Tour brings their latest chapter to Manchester, with a sound that moves between garage, breakbeat and more melodic, atmospheric moments. Their second album, Pure Devotion, gives that sound room to breathe without losing the immediacy that makes it work on a dancefloor.
The wider bill brings together artists whose influence stretches across generations and corners of club culture. James Blake and Joy Orbison go back-to-back, pairing Blake’s genre-crossing production with one of UK dance music’s most influential modern figures, while Detroit house heavyweight Moodymann and drum and bass legend Andy C bring decades of dancefloor history into the mix. Elsewhere, the harder-edged sounds of Blawan, Helena Hauff and DJ Bone sit alongside the more experimental work of Blackhaine, Lee Gamble, Nkisi and Space Afrika. It’s a showcase of some of the most crucial artists shaping electronic music now, with Manchester’s own underground firmly in the picture.
Depot Mayfield provides the ideal setting. Its industrial architecture, immense scale and unmistakable warehouse atmosphere create an environment in which Overmono’s music can be experienced in its fullest form.
The set brought together tracks that have shaped Overmono’s rise alongside newer material. “So U Kno” landed with its familiar rush of chopped vocals and breakbeats; “Good Lies” balanced euphoria with a touch of melancholy, while “Is U” brought a more direct, garage-leaning energy. “If We Ever” and “Bby” showed the more melodic side of their sound, before “Turn the Page” — their reworking of The Streets — the ultimate crowd pleaser.
The sets being made available to listeners worldwide, free of charge and without requiring an Apple Music subscription. Speaking with Stephen Campbell, Apple Music’s Global Head of Dance, Electronic & DJ Mixes, offers insight into the thinking behind the collaboration. Campbell was attending WHP as a raver twenty years ago, even pestering the team to let him in.
That sense of immersion shapes Apple Music’s global approach to dance music. Campbell explained that the platform looks beyond major festivals and established names to emerging scenes and new movements. Its international teams are made up of people actively involved in club culture, with the aim of understanding what is happening locally and supporting it, rather than imposing a brand from the outside.
For Campbell, respecting dance music’s heritage is just as important as helping it evolve. The internet has made that history more accessible to younger generations, while opening up space for artists to push the culture in new directions. The challenge is to honour its foundations without freezing it in time.
This philosophy is reflected in Apple Music’s work with institutions such as The Warehouse Project. Campbell described the principle as representation: the platform should not dictate how a partner operates or compromise its identity, but bring its work to a wider audience.
“We’re not here to change, we’re here to shift. We’re not here to own at all. It’s about uplifting and magnifying.” Apple Music’s role, then, is not to claim ownership of the culture, but to amplify the people and places that have built it.
Campbell’s account of the Jeff Mills One Mix project showed how Apple Music can push creative boundaries alongside artists. Working with its Spatial Audio engineers, the team explored how a DJ mix could move beyond traditional stereo, allowing Mills to mix in an immersive environment. But the collaboration took an unexpected turn when Mills expressed an interest in using sounds from space. Campbell went as far as securing access to NASA’s space-sound library, bringing the idea to life. It’s a remarkable example of how an artist’s curiosity, backed by the right technology and a willingness to experiment, can take a mix somewhere entirely new.
Unless you were living under a rock, Apple Music’s ‘Made by Sound’ identity, unveiled in October, was hard to miss. Developed with Fred again.. and NEST Acoustics, it transformed sound into visuals, using notes played through a transducer in mineral oil to create ripples that shaped the logo. We experienced the idea first-hand during a pre-WHP briefing in a Spatial Audio space in Manchester, where the technology took on a more tangible dimension.
We also listened to snippets of several mixes, including a track from Goldie’s One Mix, “Kaeya (Rage Mix)” by Nookie — genuinely an out-of-body experience — alongside a more commercial Sonny Fodera WHP mix, which conveyed the venue’s scale and big-room energy. It brought the partnership into focus: not simply broadcasting sets or attaching a logo, but using technology to amplify the music while respecting the culture, artists and history behind it.
While nothing can quite replicate the experience of standing in a warehouse surrounded by thousands of people, broadcasting performances allows those moments to reach listeners who may never have the opportunity to attend in person. For Manchester, Apple Music Club Live provides another way of sharing WHP’s identity, its artists and its atmosphere with the world.
Apple Music DJ, presenter and host NAINA, whose background in community radio has shaped her approach to music, storytelling and championing artists, sees Apple Music’s work with club culture as a natural extension of that ethos: “Everything we’ve done up until this day has been about the music, the scenes, the culture.”
As a DJ and selector herself, she’s particularly enthusiastic about the platform’s DJ Mix programme and the opportunity it creates for emerging talent. “I’m a tastemaker. I want to be bigging up these artists as much as I can. Whether they’ve got 100 followers or 10,000 followers, I want people to get to know who they are,” she explains. The ability to record and share mixes while ensuring artists are credited and receive royalties, she says, feels like “a really lovely way to truly give back to the artist”.
Naina’s perspective also speaks to the global reach of club music and the way sounds travel between communities. Reflecting on welcoming Chicago footwork pioneers to the radio studio, she describes how rewarding it is to see their music resonate with UK audiences. “You could – you should – know about footwork because it’s sick,” she says. It’s an infectious sentiment, and one that captures her wider approach: opening up the music she loves to new listeners, without gatekeeping or losing sight of the scenes that created it.
The anniversary weekend ultimately feels like a celebration of both the past and the future of dance music. The Warehouse Project’s twenty-year history is a testament to Manchester’s enduring cultural significance, but its continued success lies in its ability to evolve.
However, Manchester’s musical momentum isn’t just being sustained at The Warehouse Project; it’s being built into the city itself. During our time in Manchester, we spoke to Niall Roche, founder of DAYP Records, who is opening what is set to be Deansgate’s first record store in over 20 years. A record store and bar, DAYP marks a new chapter for Roche, who has spent the past twelve years immersed in the city’s music and nightlife scene, working across programming, mentoring and education, and helping hundreds of people find their footing in the industry while championing local artists.
“Manchester generally, I think, is definitely in the top five in the world at the moment for nightlife,” Roche says. Having worked across the city’s venues and talent programmes, he sees a scene rich in creativity, but one that still needs stronger industry infrastructure to help its artists reach a global audience. His own venture aims to play a part in that. “My plans for the shop are to just basically put all of these things into one house and keep building bridges between Manchester and Europe and America and Asia.”
Set beyond the Northern Quarter, DAYP is intended as both a record store and a home for the city’s underground – bringing in rare stock, showcasing talent from across the UK and Europe, and giving artists a platform to sell their work and play gigs. In a city continually finding new ways to move forward, Roche’s project is another example of the people putting that future into practice.
Twenty years on, The Warehouse Project is still looking forward. Its legacy isn’t simply the nights it has hosted or the artists it has championed, but the culture and community it continues to shape. From Overmono’s evolving take on UK rave to the independent spaces emerging across Manchester, the city’s story is still being written – and WHP remains part of what comes next.
Words – Josh Crowe
