A Certain Ratio


A Certain Ratio are an English post-punk band formed in 1977 in Flixton, Greater Manchester by Peter Terrell and Simon Topping, with additional members Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop, Donald Johnson, and Martha Tilson joining soon after. Drawing heavy influence from funk as well as disco and Latin percussion, the band were among to first to debut on Tony Wilson's Factory Records in 1979 with "All Night Party," produced by Martin Hannett. During ACR's early years with Factory, they scored seven Top Ten U.K. independent releases, highlighted by "Flight" and "Waterline," and released five albums beginning with The Graveyard and the Ballroom.
Following late-'80s and early-'90s phases with major-label A&M and Rob Gretton's independent Robs Records, ACR were intermittently active. They returned to the studio for the 2008 album Mind Made Up and since then have continued to perform, with their catalog recirculated through an arrangement with Mute Records. ACR continued to perform into the late 2010s, and during 2017-2019 expanded, reissued, and anthologized their catalog once more, this time through Mute Records.

History

The Factory era

The band was formed by singer Simon Topping and guitar/electronics player Peter Terrell, who after initially performing as a duo, were soon joined by bass guitarist/vocalist Jez Kerr and then guitarist/trumpeter Martin Moscrop, the band playing without a drummer for a year. The band's name is taken from the lyric of Brian Eno's song "The True Wheel" from the 1974 album Taking Tiger Mountain . Their early influences included Parliament, Funkadelic, and Earth, Wind and Fire. This early line-up, with a bass-heavy industrial/funk sound, recorded the group's debut single, "All Night Party", released by Factory Records in September 1979, with Factory label boss Tony Wilson also becoming their manager, proclaiming the band to be "the new Sex Pistols". The 5,000 copies that were pressed soon sold out. On 1 October 1979 the band recorded a session for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show, by which time Donald Johnson had joined the band on drums.
Their next release, the cassette-only compilation of demos and live tracks The Graveyard and the Ballroom, was released in January 1980. Moscrop started a second band in 1980, Swamp Children, that would go on to share several members with A Certain Ratio. In July that year, the band's second single, a cover version of Banbarra's "Shack Up", recorded at cost of £50, was released, followed in November with "Flight", which saw their first placing on the UK Independent Chart, peaking at no. 7. "Shack Up" got a US release in January 1981, going on to peak at no. 46 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart, and the band expanded to a six-piece with the addition of former Occult Chemistry singer Martha Tilson, with Topping focusing on trumpet and percussion.
The expanded lineup recorded their debut studio album; To Each... was recorded in New Jersey with Martin Hannett producing, and released in May 1981. It topped the UK Independent Chart. They recorded a second Peel session in June, and finished the year with the single "Waterline", which was another top 10 indie chart hit. The band's second studio album, Sextet, followed in January 1982, now incorporating elements of acid jazz. funk, and latin music, and again topped the indie albums chart, also peaking at no. 55 on the UK Albums Chart. In February 1982 they released the dub reggae single "Abracadubra" under the pseudonym 'Sir Horatio'. They had further indie charting singles that year with "Guess Who?" and "Knife Slits Water", and recorded a third Peel session in November, now without Tilson, but with Andy Connell added on keyboards and percussion. The band's third album, I'd Like to See You Again, was also issued in November 1982, reaching no. 2 on the indie albums chart.
The band's two founding members, Topping and Terrell, left the band in late 1982. Simon Topping recorded a solo single before forming T-Coy with former Quando Quango Mike Pickering. The band regrouped and returned in October 1983 with the single "I Need Someone Tonight", another top-10 indie hit. Tony Quigley joined on saxophone, and the band released three singles in late 1984 and 1985, before a remixed 'best of' compilation, The Old and the New, was issued in December. Connell left in 1985 to form Swing Out Sister, whose singer Corinne Drewery guested on ACR's next album, Force, their last for Factory. In January 1986 they performed live on Channel 4 music show The Tube.

1989–1997: A&M, Rob's Records, and Creation Records

New releases were sparse during the next two years. Dojo Records released a 1985 live recording as an album in February 1987, and Italian label Materiali released an EP five months later. The band signed with A&M Records in 1987, the lineup now Kerr, Moscrop, Johnson, and Quigley, the first releases for the label the singles "The Big E" and "Backs to the Wall", which preceded the album Good Together, released in September 1989. A 50–minute recording of a live show from London was broadcast on British television in October. They also set up their own SoundStation studio in Manchester. The band's only significant chart success with A&M came with the 1990 single "Won't Stop Loving You", which peaked at no. 55 on the UK Singles Chart, although the first two singles also made the lower reaches of the chart. The album acr:mcr followed, but the band were then dropped from the label.
In 1991, they signed with Rob's Records, owned by New Order manager and former Factory Records partner Rob Gretton, releasing a string of singles and the album Up in Dowsnville. In 1994, Creation Records began reissuing the band's albums on the Rev-Ola sub-label, and also released two EPs of remixes. The band's first original material for almost three years was released in August 1996, with the live Soundstation Volume 1 EP, followed in November with the Change the Station album. A second Soundstation live EP was released in March 1997, the band's last release for some time.
In 2002 Soul Jazz Records reissued the albums with bonus tracks. Further re-issues and a live recording from 1980 have also been made available on the LTM label.

2000s return

The band played occasional live shows between 2002 and 2007, and performed in the US for the first time since 1985 on 16 November 2008, headlining the Part Time Punks festival at The Echo in Los Angeles, releasing a new album Mind Made Up the same month, on French label Le Maquis. They performed a headline set at the Offset Festival in London in September 2009, playing alongside fellow post-punk artists The Slits, following a one-off live performance commemorating Factory Records in Dublin, in March that year. They performed at the Plan K, Molenbeek in West Brussels on 12 December 2009 as part of the event, 'A Factory Night '. This event also featured Section 25, The Wake, The Names and Biting Tongues. Towards the end of 2009, the band announced a live appearance at a fund-raising event at Brighton's Concorde 2 venue on 7 March 2010. Their 2008 album, Mind Made Up was re-issued via LTM Recordings during 2010, along with a redux version of the 1986 set, Force.
In May 2011, they performed on The Satellite Stage at Friends Of Mine Festival at Capesthorne Hall near Macclesfield, and were introduced by their friend Terry Christian.
In 2018, Mute Records began reissuing their back catalogue, they released ACR:Set, an album of mostly old tracks with two new tracks, one recorded with Barry Adamson and featuring a recording of Tony Wilson, and undertook a tour of the UK with dates in Ireland and Finland. In November 2018 they recorded a session for Marc Riley's BBC Radio 6 Music show, performing new song "Dirty Boy", "Mickey Way", and "Flight".
They released a box set, a 40th anniversary retrospective named acr:box, in May 2019 and are also touring in support of this.

In film

"Wild Party" was used in the soundtrack of the 1985 film Letter to Brezhnev. "Shack Up" was used in the soundtrack of Patrice Chéreau's Intimacy. The band are featured in the 2002 film 24 Hour Party People where Tony Wilson describes them as "having all the energy of Joy Division but better clothes". Martin Moscrop was musical supervisor of the film.

Discography

Albums

;Studio albums:
TitleYearLabelNotesUK Independent
Albums Chart		UK Albums
Chart
The Graveyard and the Ballroom1979Factory – FACT 16reissued via Rev-Ola, Universal Sound and Mute
To Each...1981Factory – FACT 35reissued via Creation and then Soul Jazz1
Sextet1982Factory – FACT 55reissued via Creation and then Soul Jazz153
I'd Like to See You Again1982Factory – FACT 65reissued via Creation, LTM and Factory Benelux2
Force1986Factory – FACT 166reissued via Creation and then LTM 2
Good Together1989A&M ACR 550reissued via Mute
acr:mcr1990A&M 397 057-2
Up In Downsville1992Rob's – ROB20reissued via LTM
Change the Station1997Rob's – ROB50
Mind Made Up2008Le Maquisreissued via LTM

;Compilations and live albums:
TitleYearLabelNotesUK Independent
Albums Chart
The Graveyard and the Ballroom1979Factory – FACT 16Studio demos/live29
A Certain Ratio Live in America1985Dojo – DOJO 47Live album10
The Old and the New1986Factory – FACT 135Singles compilation3
Looking for a Certain Ratio1994Creation – CRE159BRemixes
Early2002Soul Jazz – SJR60Compilation
Live in Groningen2005LTM – LTM 2443Live album
acr:set2018Mute – MUTEL28Compilation
ACR:BOX2019Mute – ACRBOX1CDCompilation

Singles, EPs

*Cassette-only tracks
**CD-only tracks