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A Certain Ratio - 1982

Another band that I completely overlooked back in the day, I was rather young. What’s the best album to start with?
 
Woodface said:
Another band that I completely overlooked back in the day, I was rather young. What’s the best album to start with?
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From their in-print catalogue you need To Each and Sextet as an absolute minimum.

The real essentials are all 12” singles:

Flight/Blown Away/And Then Again
Do The Du (Casse)/The Fox/Shack Up/Son & Heir
Waterline/Funaezeka
Knife Slits Water/Kether Hot Knives

They are all findable and not expensive unlike some Factory stuff. The Soul Jazz compilation ‘Early’ gets most of it, but that’s deleted and hard to find.

The early cassette release The Graveyard & The Ballroom is well worth having too. I’ve got the Soul Jazz vinyl reissue as I stupidly never bought the cassette at the time.
 
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That’s the thing with the 12” singles…they appear on some ACR comps but you need the Factory original 12s. They sound amazing, particularly Flight.
 
“The sound sound proudly presents..” is such a great opening on the 12” of Knife Slits Water.
acr:box is brilliant if you can find it at a reasonable price, and Early was how I got back into the band.
 
Good to hear the new LP is promising. I've always enjoyed them live, especially in the early days and still now when they play the earlier more 'industrial', angular music. Denise became such a perfect presence and voice live and I'm not sure anybody will ever be able to replace her. I loved the early 12" releases, 'To Each', 'Sextet' and some parts of the following albums but found the fairly recent LP 'LOCO' underwhelming. Might just have to buy 1982!
 
I'm listening to Marc Riley. The first track I thought the vocals were weak, reminded me of some early New Order lyrics which didn't cut it. Riley's also playing a Joy Division Peel session, which is great as the Martin Hannet productions often meant that hearing their records in a club you'd be certain that a record was by one when in fact it was by the other! They of course played together on numerous occasions. I've got lots of early acr stuff but only recently became aware that Simon Topping quit the band as early as 1982. He'd apparently felt the pain of Ian Curtis's demise more than others. I'll probably not buy the new stuff but will give the pretty complete set of records and tapes on Factory a play. I've checked on my Discogs and agree that most of it is affordable including the Graveyard and Ballroom tape and the All Night Party 7 inches.
 
The lyrics/vocals definitely let down the tracks I listened to. I suspect it would have been far better as an instrumental album as the music sounds real good and funky with that edge we expect from ACR. Hopefully it sounds better on vinyl when it turns up (I only listened to a couple of bits on the iPad which does push vocals way out front).
 
Had the vinyl for a few days now and it is really helped by being a very good sounding record. I still think the vocal/lyrics are weak, but it still works. Musically it is excellent. I’d certainly go and see this lot long before what’s left of New Order!

PS I went for the splatter vinyl in grey sleeve. A decent sounding record by any standard. Punchy, funky and weighty with some real scale.
 
Seeing ACR this Sunday.
Last gig I went to see them (Leeds last year) they had the new lass singing and I thought she was pretty good (difficult to beat Denise though :( )
 
Got a ticket to see them on the 29th at the Garage - only the third time for me.
First was Feb '81 at Valentinos in Edinburgh supported by Josef K, next was at Elektrowerkz in Mar '02 a night that also featured Richard H Kirk and Mr Weatherall on the decks.

Got the Graveyard and Ballroom cassette somewhere
 
Hadn't realised this 1982 album was featured on the Tim Burgess Listening Party...

...worth a synchronised listen with the CD for the contributions from the band members:-

https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_1240.html

Knew I had seen that set of colours on the sleeve before - apparently old Sony VHS tape box designs.

My dad was a Betamax man - so I was a bit late to the VHS party!

At least my Joy Division "Here Are The Young Men" Betamax edition bought by father for my 1982 Xmas present at W.H.Smiths Leicester - is now worth a pretty penny...

https://www.discogs.com/release/803719-Joy-Division-Here-Are-The-Young-Men

...and there was my Dad wanting to take it back - he had viewed it before Xmas and thought it was clearly defective.

No Dad - that is supposed to be how it looks!
 
I saw them at the Hare and Hounds last night, and if you can get to remaining shows do so. The girls, Ellen Beth and Viv, are fantastic, adding an extra depth to the sound.
 
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