Fifty Minutes Of ACR

In 1987 a friend made me a compilation tape which included two songs by Mancunian band A Certain Ratio- Shack Up and Do The Du. I've been listening to ACR ever since. They released their latest album, 1982, last Friday and it's fair to say the group have been re- energised in recent years, the result partly of a deal with Mute to re- issue all their albums. I'd been thinking of an ACR Sunday mix for some time and just as I ended up doing a pair of One Dove mixes a while back, I think I may need to come back to ACR for a second go. The mix here contains none of the punk- funk sound of their releases on Factory, the nervous, minimal, scratchy, demob suits and army shorts songs that made their reputation. Instead I've gone for a mix of dancefloor oriented songs spanning three decades.  The core trio of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson have regrouped several times since 1979, not least following the deaths of Rob Gretton in 1999 and singer Denise Johnson in 2020, but they're still creating and producing new music and are getting stronger and stronger. If they're playing near you, go and see them. ACR are a good night out guaranteed. 

Fifty Minutes Of ACR

• Dirty Boy
• Music Control
• Mello
• Be What You Wanna Be
• Night People
• Wedge (ACR Rework)
• Emperor Machine
• Taxi Guy
• Won't Stop Loving You (Bernard Sumner Remix)

Dirty Boy came out in 2018 ahead of the group's acr:set compilation, with vocals from Barry Adamson and the sampled voice of one- time mentor, manager and label boss Tony Wilson.

Music Control was a collaboration between ACR's alter ego Sir Horatio and Chris Massey, DJ, producer and promoter from Stretford, a squelchy collision of punk- funk, acid house and mutant disco.

Mello came out in 1992 on Rob Gretton's new label Rob's Records, a slice of loved up Mancunian house.  

Be What You Wanna Be is from 1990's acr: mcr, a renewal of the group's sound and fortunes. They left Factory for A&M but 1989's Good Together failed to shift many copies  (a shame as it's an album with much going for it). acr: mcr is wall to wall brilliance, from Spirit Dance to Good Together to Tribecca, rhythms and pianos inspired by the records playing in the Hacienda. Personnel changes at A&M saw them leave not long after for Rob's Records. I saw them at Manchester Academy in autumn 1991, a gig packed to the rafters and with a crowd up for it from the moment ACR appeared on stage. A few songs in my then girlfriend decided this was the ideal opportunity to have an argument and walk out of the venue.  

Night People was on one of three EPs ACR released in 2021, thirteen tracks, with no filler, following the comeback album Loco, on Mute, from the year before. Night People was on the third of the three, ACR: EPR, and has a swampy Bowie/ Iggy in Berlin groove. 

Wedge is by Number, Ali Friend and Rich Thair's spin off from Red Snapper, a 2020 punk funk trip. The two bands swapped remixes, this being ACR's remix of Number. Number's Binary album came out in April 2020 and probably got a little overlooked with everything else that was going on in spring 2020.

Emperor Machine was a collaboration between ACR and Emperor Machine (Andy Meacham, who found fame first time around in Bizarre Inc). The self- titled track was on EPC in 2021 and is supercharged mutant disco/ punk funk. 

Taxi Guy is the closing song on 2020's Loco album, an album that showed they were right back on it and fired up. Jazzy, samba grooves and a mass drumming finale. Their vie gigs over the last decade have sometimes finished with the group ending up leaving the stage and walking into the audience, drumming and blowing whistles, as happened at Gorilla in early 2020.

Won't Stop Loving You is a remix of a song from acr: mcr by Bernard Sumner from 1990. Sumner stripped the song back to Jez and Denise's vocals, whipcrack 808 drums and house piano. Something of a desert island disc for me. 

Wedge

This arrived via email and has gone straight to the top of my listening list, a sharp focussed four minutes of fun from Number (Rich Thair and Ali Friend, both also of Red Snapper). Number's album Binary came out earlier this year, an exhilarating blast of punk- funk, dance rhythms, live drums, grooves and DIY, songs you can dance to. The song Wedge has now been rejigged by A Certain Ratio, a partnership that seems blindingly obviously really and the end result is this...



And if that doesn't shine some light into your day and set you off with a bounce in your step I don't know what will. Wedge (ACR Rework) sounds like exactly the sort of tune that should soundtrack a party at The Face magazine's end of year knees up in 1983 while also being bang on the 2020 money. A vibrant and energetic re-working, vocals and whistles and laser noises riding over a funked up rhythm and squelchy bassline. And yet more proof that ACR are firing on all cylinders.

Isolation Mix Eleven

This week's mix is made up entirely of songs released during lockdown, since mid- March 2020. Some of them have been written and recorded during this period. I could easily have doubled the length of this so maybe I'll come back to this and do a part two. This one has the trippy psyche of Sonic Boom, dusty funk desert blues from Ess O Ess, some dubby jazz (or jazzy dub) courtesy of Jah Wobble, Number's post- punk dance stance, yet more excellence from Weatherall and Walsh's Woodleigh Research Facility, Justin Robertson and Sofia Hedblom's blend of Nigerian rhythms and electronic dub, Dan Wainwright's pagan chug and some Balearic bliss from Joe Morris, Rich Lane, The Long Champs and a cover by Rheinzand. There's one segue which is a bit of a mess but it'll have to do. Life has surface noise and all that.



Sonic Boom: Just Imagine
Ess O Ess and Saul Richards: Totem (Swamp Crawl)

Jah Wobble: Lockdown 5 (Forbearance)

Number: Red Flag

Woodleigh Research Facility: Karra Mesh

Formerlover: Correction Dub

Dan Wainwright: A Blessing

Joe Morris: The New Dawn Will Come

Rich Lane: Barry Island (The Long Champs Dub)

Rheinzand: All By Myself

Titan Shuff

Rich Thair and Ali Friend have spent the best part of three decades as the co- founders and rhythm section of Red Snapper. In their downtime recently they've formed Number, a group built around themselves as the core with a floating cast of vocalists and pushing a tough funky post- punk energy, the wired dance floor sound of ACR, Talking Heads, New York's No Wave. The album, Binary, is a nightclub riot of percussion, disco bass, scratchy guitars, some electro, a generous helping of dub and some lovely, wonky horns. It is out at the end of the month. In the meantime here's Titan Shuff, a science fiction intro, silky, dubbed out vox and a tremendous mutant groove.

Face Down

Former Red Snapper duo Ali Friend and Rich Thair have a new band called Number, inspired by the punk-funk acts of the late 70s and early 80s of New York and Manchester, the scratchy guitars and dub influenced basslines and chanted vocals of A Certain Ratio, Talking Heads, Magazine and sounds and the styles of No wave and dirty disco. The first fruits of this new group is the song Face Down In Ecstasy and Richard, Ali and friends have delivered- hipwiggling bass, hi hats and a lovely choppy guitar.