Legendary Manchester post-punk/funk band A Certain Ratio have revealed the video for their new single "Emperor Machine".
The song is taken from their new collaborations EP dedicated to Andrew Weatherall 'ACR:EPC', which will be out on July 2 via Mute. Pre-order your copy here.
All four tracks on ACR:EPC are collaborations. Emperor Machine is a collaboration with Andy Meecham, also known as Emperor Machine, YOYOGRIP is a collaboration with Maria Uzor from Sink Ya Teeth and Jacknife Lee and Music Control is a collaboration with Chris Massey who remixed Dirty Boy in 2019. The track Guv’nor is inspired by longtime ACR friend Andrew Weatherall and is a collaboration in spirit.
Legendary Manchester post-punk/funk band A Certain Ratio have announced the release of their new album 'LOCO', their first in 12 years.
The 10-track album and their first since 2008’s Mind Made Up, will be out on September 25th via Mute. Pre-order your copy here.
ACR Loco feels like an accumulation of ACR's DNA from point zero in 1977 through to 2020 and sounds like a band who have effortlessly perfected their craft. An album to dance to, cry to, fall in love to and most importantly, to party to.
Loco was produced by the core ACR members Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson, joined by long term partners Tony Quigley, Denise Johnson and Matt Steele, plus special guests Sink Ya Teeth’s Maria Uzor and Gemma Cullingford, Factory Floor’s Gabe Gurnsey and Manchester luminaries Mike Joyce and Eric Random.
Speaking of the project, Kerr explained that “this album is a culmination of everything we’ve ever done. It distils the different directions and styles that have run throughout the band’s career – one that began in the late ‘70s with Factory Records first ever 7” release.”
Check out the album's tracklist and listen to new single "Always In Love," below.
LOCO tracklisting:
01. Friends Around Us
02. Bouncy Bouncy
03. Yo Yo Gi
04. Supafreak
05. Always In Love
06. Family
07. Get A Grip
08. Berlin
09. What’s Wrong
10. Taxi Guy
Legendary Manchester post-punk/funk band A Certain Ratio have shared a video for the new Chris Massey remix of "Dirty Boy", featuring Barry Adamson and the voice of the late Tony Wilson.
The song taken from the upcoming new EP set to be released on September 6th, which features classic and long unavailable remixes of Shack Up by Electronic (Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr) as well as another new remix of Dirty Boy by Paul Dering. Pre-order it here.
The video was edited by Chris Massey. Watch it below.
Legendary Manchester post-punk/funk band A Certain Ratio have shared a video for their cover version of Talking Heads' "Houses In Motion".
The song features on the their new 40th Anniversary Box Set ACR:BOX, which will be released on 3 May on vinyl, CD, download and streaming services. Pre-order it here.
"Houses In Motion" is reworked from original tapes, recorded in 1980 with Martin Hannett. This track, a Talking Heads cover, was intended as a collaboration with Grace Jones. Although Jones attended a session with the band at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, her vocals were never completed and the vocal on this version (recorded by Jez Kerr, prior to him becoming the band’s singer) was only ever intended as a guide vocal.
Jez Kerr continues, "It was great to find this lost track and, even though the original idea was for Grace Jones to sing on it, I think this version captures the essence of ACR at their best – when we are being ACR and sounding like no one else."
Legendary Manchester post-punk/funk band A Certain Ratio have aired their brand new song "Make It Happen".
This is one of two brand new compositions (we have prevoisuly heard "Dirty Boy"), taken from their career spanning compilation 'ACR:SET', set to arrive on 12 October. Pre-order your copy here.
Legendary Manchester post-punk/funk band A Certain Ratio have revealed their new single "Dirty Boy" Feat. Barry Adamson and the voice of Tony Wilson.
This is the band's first new music since 2008’s Mind Made Up, and is taken from 'ACR:SET', a career spanning compilation, including two new tracks, released on coloured double vinyl, CD and digitally on 12 October 2018. Pre-order your copy here.
‘Dirty Boy’ is a classic slice of A Certain Ratio pop funk and features the voice of the late Factory Records co-founder Tony Wilson, preparing the band for ‘The Fox’ recording session in his own inimitable fashion, plus vocals from Barry Adamson, who returns a favour to the band after they reworked 2017’s ‘I Got Clothes’.
The two new tracks, ‘Dirty Boy’ and ‘Make It Happen’ were recorded at Oxygene in Manchester, and both appear on the new best-of compilation, acr:set. The album is made up of tracks that feature in the band’s incendiary live show (hence the title) and includes rare 7” and 12” mixes alongside the two new recordings and sleeve notes by DJ and writer Dave Haslam.
Take a listen below.
A Certain Ratio embraced the ethic and culture of the late seventies post-punk explosion, but sounded like nothing else around them and refused to fit in. Formed in Manchester in 1978, the band has had various members throughout their career, with a core line-up of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson that remains today.
An influence on generations of musicians - from LCD Soundsystem, Happy Mondays, Franz Ferdinand, ESG, Factory Floor, Sink Ya Teeth and Andrew Weatherall – the band’s involvement in cultural touchpoints is sometimes unexpected: a recent exhibition centred on Stockport’s Strawberry Studios uncovered the tape box, but not the tapes, from a recording session with Grace Jones back in 1980 and Madonna’s live debut was supporting A Certain Ratio at the infamous Danceteria in New York in 1982 (where she was working as a hatcheck girl), and sometimes expected, given the unique time and place that they formed – Manchester in 1978, one of the first acts to sign to the newly formed Factory Records.
