Sunday 18 April 2010

VARIOUS – FACTORY RECORDS COMMUNICATIONS (FACTORY RECORDS/RHINO)


VARIOUS – FACTORY RECORDS COMMUNICATIONS (FACTORY RECORDS/RHINO)

Released for Record Store Day 2010 this ten inch sampler features four tracks from the strongest arms in the Factory Records legacy. As ever with most Factory releases the packaging looks amazing, minimal but stark and tastefully done as in some respect/degree this release just represents the latest plundering of the Factory back catalogue.

After visiting Manchester earlier this year I now find myself with something of a larger appreciation for the place and the music that came from within it. Indeed it was watching 24 Hour Party People almost ten years ago now that snapped me with a moment of clarity that read “this is how a record label should be” and within a few weeks I had jacked in my own label Gringo Records.

Back on vinyl this music sounds better than ever. Despite the best efforts of Peter Hook to undermine their legacy a song such as “Transmission” will always represent the pinnacle of British independent music. The playing is frenetic, the intentions and message are just terrifying as it represents all things that were right with a genre that was supposed to be about disenfranchised individuals. This was the band performing at their peak.

“Ceremony” by New Order follows still enabling the dark elements of the band that they used to be. In comparison to Curtis the vocals of Sumner sound robotic by design, required to be startling and cold by necessity. In order to keep up business as usual it all had to be aloof.

Turning over The Durutti Column selection “Sketch For Summer” is a tweeting bird affair creating a casual roam for the listener as the label’s mentally challenged older brother act takes a stroll around the recesses of their own mind. It’s a window.

Smartly the Happy Mondays selection is the club mix of “Hallelujah” which serves to remind the listener that the band was not necessarily always the cartoon drug addled idiots that they resemble these days as they take their touring circus act around the globe doing the festival circuit cheapening their act with each blow. Received from its natural home on vinyl “Hallelujah” is such a sickly smooth piece of work with the best kind of grooving bassline offering the recipient the best in both worlds of beats and guitars. This still probably sounds magnificent in a club today, this has genuinely aged majestically. Well done chaps.

I’d take the exploits of Tony Wilson over Malcolm McLaren any day of the week. He was only a pretend prat.

I love ten inches.

Thesaurus moment: tool.

Joy Division
New Order
The Durutti Column
Happy Mondays
Factory Records
Rhino

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