A Certain Ratio - Mind Made Up (2008)

Genre : Electronica,Post-Punk,Funk,New-Wave,Leftfield 80's
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Tracklist

01. I feel light
02. Down down down
03. Everything is good
04. Way to escape
05. Rialto 2006
06. Mind made up
07. Teri
08. Bird to the ground
09. Starlight
10. Which is reality ?
11. Skunk
12. Very busy man

Somewhere between the Graveyard and the Ballroom, in a place defined by late seventies industrial Manchester and early eighties New York sunsets, at a point between the old and the new, they found their feet. Formed during the ampthetamine-crazed soundwave that was Punk UK 1978, taking in influences from teutonic technotronicers Kraftwerk, powered by Wire and holding court in George Clinton's Funkadelic house of Parliament, A Certain Ratio took to the stage.

Intense and diverse, and originally drummerless, they released their debut single in 1979 - "All Night Party/The Thin Boys" through Factory Records, a label set up by Rob Gretton, Alan Erasmus, and Anthony (H) Wilson. A highly prophetic choice of title, as this was indeed the beginning of one long all-nighter for both parties. Donald Johnson joined as drummer after its release, completing the original line up with Simon Topping, Jez Kerr, Pete Terrell and Martin Moscrop. The band returned to the studio and completed a series of gigs around the country with labelmates Joy Division during late '79 and early 1980. Factory released the debut album "The Graveyard and the Ballroom", a limited edition cassette-only release that contained both studio demos and live tracks.

In late 1980, the story switches from post-punk Manchester to the hustle-bustle of the Big Apple, New York City. Romantic Mancunians love to ponder the similarities between the two cities, the skyline over Hulme, the great canals running through the cities (born from their mutual industrial heritage), the fantastic nightlife. Realistic Mancs know the score - Manchester is fuck-all like New York, but it looks good in print. The band played gigs with local funk-machine ESG, along with a fledgling New Order and a little known support act by the name of Madonna. They filmed the 'Tribeca' film with Michael Shamberg, a film featuring a fantastic gig at Hurrah's, interspersed with footage of the band concocting a percussive beatdown in their loft dwellings. In the middle of this flurry of activity, the band checked into EARS studio, New Jersey, with legendary producer Martin Hannett at the controls. The fruits of these sessions formed ACR's debut studio album, "To Each...", an album on which the impact was single-handedly destroyed by "that idiot hippie" - an in-house engineer at the studio who decided to zero all of Hannett's mix settings before he'd had chance to get the album to tape. The album was eventually remixed and released in January 1981, proceeded by the single, Flight.