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. 

Saturday Theme Fourteen

Saturday's theme today comes from the former bassist of Magazine and one time Bad Seed, Barry Adamson, a man whose solo back catalogue is littered with delights and treasures. In 1992, on his Soul Murder album, Adamson recorded his take on the James Bond Theme, a version that has been sent to Jamaica and infused with ska and a big band orchestra, a sample from the original 1962 John Barry and Monty Norman Bond theme and a spoken word vocal that imagine a world where Bond is from Kingston and Bond is black. 

007 A Fantasy Bond Theme

I know it's close to pop culture heresy but I've never been that fussed about the Bond films. Some of the 60s ones have a period charm- the suits are well cut, the women are beautiful and the villains villainous, but it quickly became a joke that wore increasingly thin. I like the voodoo nonsense of Live And Let Die, I must have watched that at an impressionable age on a wet Sunday afternoon at some point. The modern Bonds don't do much for me at all. Is it just me? Have I got Bond all wrong?

Dirty Boy

A Certain Ratio have been having a new lease of life since singing to Mute with new singles, old songs excavated from the vaults, re-issues, box sets and gigs. Last year's single Dirty Boy, featuring guest voices from the living (Barry Adamson) and the dead (Tony Wilson) has been remixed by Chris Massey, a Manchester based DJ, producer and promoter. The remix is if anything better than the original version, Jez Kerr's bass in the foreground and a thudding house beat putting ACR back at the heart of the dancefloor. The video is a time shifting delight, intercutting footage of Manchester and it's people from the last forty years, the Hacienda of the late 80s, dancers at a 70s discotheque, ravers at an outdoor festival, Jez and the band live on stage in '89 and recently, the Mancunian Way then and now, our orange buses and a 60s motorcyclist speeding through the city centre- the old and the new.

Dirty Boys

A Certain Ratio are putting out a compilation album in October which by the looks of it mirrors their current live set, opening with Do The Du, Wild Party and Flight and then moving through their back catalogue taking in Mickey Way, 27 Forever, Won't Stop Loving You, Good Together and finishing with the samba drum fest of Si Firmir O Grido. Attached to the end of the compilation are two new songs, the first of which was posted online yesterday (the 11th anniversary of Tony Wilson's death, presumably not coincidentally). The song is called Dirty Boys and has the voice of Wilson on it along with vocals from Barry Adamson. It sounds like a reinvigorated ACR still have plenty to contribute.

I Love You Because You're Different!

I was going to give the Marvel thing a rest but I've got several great frames still to use and it's given the writing of posts a new lease of life for me and I don't ignore those kind of things when it comes to trying to find something to say every day.

Barry Adamson, a man who has played bass with both Magazine and The Bad Seeds, had several first rate solo albums and a bunch of soundtracks (including The Beach, Lost Highway and Natural Born Killers), has a new e.p. out next month- remixes of his Love Sick Dick 6 track e.p. Love Sick Dick was a kind of modern, urban blues for 2017. One of the remixes out next month is by A Certain Ratio.

Martin Moscrop, ACR's guitarist and trumpeter, describes the remix as more of a collaboration. ACR built up a new track, with drums, 303, guitar, keyboards and trumpet, dropping in Barry's vocals, chopped up, and the backing vox. The remix is tagged ACR:MCR Rework and the reference to their 1990 masterpiece is spot on. This sounds like a continuation of the sound of that record, lovely uptempo grooves with Barry's vocals on top and an extended funky end section. Very good indeed.

ACR have recently signed a deal with Mute and a series of reissues has started, with Good Together and ACR:MCR due next year.

One Of Our Girls Has Gone Missing

I rediscovered this last week, a 1989 single by A.C. Marias. In my 1989 head it somehow sounded like really polished electronic pop but listened to today sounds murkier, less overtly poppy, with a darker, post-punk undertow. The glacial vocal floats over the top of some synths and a clattering rhythm, the lyric recalling a spy thriller or Cold War film. Rowland S Howard and Barry Adamson were involved in the album and I'm assuming played on this single. A.C. Marias was the name for Angela Conway's recordings, who was also a collaborator of Wire (whose Bruce Gilbert helped out with the A.C. Marias records). A welcome blast from the late 80s I'd completely forgotten about.

One Of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing)

Moss Side Story

Barry Adamson, formerly bass player for Magazine and currently a Bad Seed, has a back catalogue I've never really explored enough. This song from his Oedipus Schmoedipus album has Jarvis Cocker in full on 'sexy' mode and is rather good. The album takes in everything from film John Barry style soundtracks to jazz, dub, soul and electronic stuff. Worth looking out for.

Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Pelvis

Moss Side Story was a film noir soundtrack and homage to the streets he grew up in, released back in 1988 and found Barry a slot on Snub TV...