CCMusic.com

Every now and again, a record carves itself an indelible place in the history of a place, a scene or a genre, all under it's own steam - without a big budget, without a press campaign, without mainstream radio, just by hitting all the right notes at the right moment. Maybe you had to have been there to really feel it - locked into the pirate stations, a regular at the right clubs, or leaning on the counter in the right records shops on a Saturday afternoon - but if you were, there are some tunes that will always vibrate with the underground cultural energy of their time.

Bo'vel's 1996 Manchester streetsoul anthem 'Check 4 U' is one of those tunes. The kind of song that makes the over-used phrase 'underground classic' mean something again, it effortlessly distills the sounds of it's era into one of the most undeniable, genre-spanning cuts of the mid-1990s. The song resonates with the regional flavors of UK sound-system culture: the sweet club sound of Manchester's vibrant streetsoul scene, the dubwise hip-hop throb of the Bristol movement, and the bass-lore of the reggae sound systems whose wisdom stretched from Leeds to South London and beyond. Built around a humid kick drum and a bin-busting bass pulse arranged in head-nodding syncopation, the song is blessed with an instantly memorable harmonized hook, and perfectly set off by Bo'vel's crystalline vocals. Upful, stepping and tinged with melancholy, it remains one of the most well-loved and highly sought-after UK streetsoul sides.

The three mixes of 'Check 4 U' appeared as the a-side of a blank-label five-track 12'. It was Bo'vel's second release, after a soulful five-track EP issued in 1995 on her own Bo'vel Records had been a surprise success. Produced by Kev Waddington, that initial record had come about almost by accident after a chance encounter in Manchester's HQ Studios, as Bo'vel recalls today: 'We were making these five tracks because we were having bit of an argument with radio not being able to play what they wanted, really, only what the record labels wanted... they never had anybody coming through properly, because everything was pretty much underground. We were making records, like really pop stuff, to take the piss... So in the studio one day, this guy came in - all I know is that his was name was Nigel. And he came in and said, I want to put that five-track EP out with you. We just don't know who the hell he was to this day, really. And he said, you've got to do it 50/50, it's going to be £1000. So I said okay - I just trusted him. I gave him 500 quid. He gave me 1000 records. He just dropped them at the studio. I picked them up and then I went into Manchester city centre and gave it to a couple of DJs on underground radio.'