Cerysmatic.Factory

The PKRP Cerysmatic Factory Favourites Playlist

2019-12-19T07:00:00.000+00:00

The PKRP Favourite Cerysmatic Factory Playlist is available now via Spotify and Apple Music for your musical factorial edification and here are the Playlist Sleevenotes:

Wim Mertens - No Plans No Projects

A prolific minimalism composer from small-town Belgium doesn't sound like a typical place to start a Factory Records playlist. But then No Plans No Projects isn't a typical Wim Mertens piece either. Built around a simple keyboard refrain, this superb track from the Educes Me album bursts into life around halfway through with LOUD synths and portentous piano. Mertens's other contribution to Factory was the soundtrack to Peter Greenaway's arthouse movie The Belly Of An Architect (Fact 195), while Educes Me holds the accolade of having one of the most sought after (and expensive) formats - the boxed cassette in the yellow case has been known to fetch up to a £200!

OMD - Almost (Hannett Mix)

The Wirral duo's sprightly iconic debut single Electricity has always been a favourite of mine, but this lo-fi Hannett mix of its attendant b-side has stayed with me since its release. Electricity has just been reissued in a new sleeve with a Vince Clarke remix of Almost on the b-side - it should have been the main attraction, not relegated to a flip. I've always liked the strange hissing sound and off-beat drum machine, the plaintive sorrowful lyric and vocal, Saville's braille sleeve and of course the fact Tony Wilson released the single for his then wife Lindsay. It really should have been a double a-side. Either track could have been a hit with a spread of radio play.

Joy Division - These Days

All those amazing and iconic album-tracks and I go and pick an often-overlooked b-side - is this bloke for real? Thing is, Love Will Tear Us Apart will always be one of the most important singles ever and needs no introduction. You'd need a heart of estuary mud to hate it. But tucked away on side two of both formats is what I consider to be one of three very important Joy Division tracks and the link to where the band were heading at the time. Isolation, Decades and These Days demonstrate the band's increased interest in electronics at the time, before Ian's sad demise. Almost 40 years on and still nothing on Movement comes close to any track on the second JD album Closer, with the possible exception of the synth-layered Doubts Even Here, but head to New Order's sophomore set Power Corruption and Lies and preceding single Everything's Gone Green and the link becomes a little more obvious. I love how this song bustles along - great drumming and driving bass from Morris and Hook.

Fadela - N'Sel Fik

Back in the '80s, when global sounds permeated the curious music-lover's conscience via John Peel's interest, Peter Gabriel's Real World and related WOMAD festivals, the public remained a bit nonplussed with the emotional synth-pomp of North African Rai. Wonderfully off-kilter and at odds with typical 4/4 beats being peddled across the pond, N'Sel Fik became a frequently dropped track at the more eclectic parties in Manchester and London. It's tenuous link to rave-culture is derived from the opening line of Fadela's lovely song being lifted and dropped onto "We Are E", a huge breakbeat tune issued in 1991. I suspect the originator was less than pleased with being associated with 'being on one' but it's a decent enough and sought after hardcore banger. Fac 197 itself remains a regular go-to when I'm playing out.

The Durutti Column - What Is It To Me (Woman)

In truth, I could have picked dozens of DC tracks to pop on this playlist but What Is It To Me (Woman) has always captivated me. It demonstrates everything great about the interplay between guitarist Vini Reilly, drummer Bruce Mitchell and attendant guests, including harmonica maestro Rob Gray. Taken from the Stephen Street-produced The Guitar and Other Machines (Fact 204) released in 1987, this track has aged very well and benefits from not being quite so drum-heavy as other tracks on the otherwise pin-sharp GOTM. It's more future jazz than art-rock (or whatever The Durutti Column were being tagged in those days) and is as contemporary as anything in Reilly's enviable and essential canon.

Marcel King - Reach For Love (NY Remix)

For a short spell in Factory's existence, the label acted as a springboard for soulful club tracks with a house twist. Soon-to-be M People luminary Mike Pickering made a decent fist of it with his Quando Quango project (Genius is just that, Love Tempo and Atom Rock were also rightfully regarded), while Section 25, New Order and A Certain Ratio embraced new technology to create the likes of Looking From a Hilltop, The Perfect Kiss and Life's A Scream. Straight out of the blocks came this bruising rework of former Sweet Sensation, er, sensation Marcel King's glorious Reach For Love. Velveteen vocals and a big-stringed 'n' synthed-up arrangement were given an overhaul by revered producer Mark Kamins, who coincidentally had mixed two of the aforementioned Quando singles. Its flip-side Keep On Dancin' was a favourite of mine for a while but this song translates better when pumped through a decent sound-system. Great record.

X-O-Dus - See Them A Come

When it came to sound-system mixes, reggae dub-lord Dennis Bovell certainly fitted the bill. The great man's deft touch can be found on one of the most collectable 12" on Factory, X-O-Dus's epic English Black Boys (Fac 11). It's such a shame that an album never materialised after such a fine landmark debut record, although LTM Records did curate a rather fetching round-up of studio material some years back. My personal preference, as with many Factory singles, is its speaker-scaring b-side See Them a Come. This is some serious heavyweight material and when piped through a capable mixing desk, is eight straight minutes of pure rib-cage rattling reggae euphoria.

Kalima - Take It Easy

I've got a soft spot for the unsung Kalima, a soul-jazz collective born out of the remains of the rather more avant-garde Swamp Children. Along the way, Kalima issued a handful of unjustly ignored singles like The Smiling Hour, Whispered Words and Weird Feelings, as well as a string of albums that had one foot in the golden age of crooners and one in the latter day Acid Jazz age. The band's final Factory album Feeling Fine (Fact 249) is perhaps their most consistent, least 'trad' set and includes some remarkable musicianship and decent songs, including this cracker. Languid, woozy and slinky, Take It Easy surpasses the album's curious single choice Shine and, in fact, most of the band's mostly likeable catalogue.

Section 25 - Inspiration

One of the first Factory albums recommended to me by one Nick Clarke who ran Rhythm Records in Plymouth during the early to mid '80s was Section 25's crystalline From The Hip. Fact 90 remains one of my all-time favourite LPs and still sounds timeless to this day. When most synth acts from the decade pummelled the hell out of our earholes with leaden drums, the Blackpool outfit wove featherlight beats with hopeful and er, inspirational songs that took the band to another level. many cite the single Looking From a Hilltop as the key track on this album but I'm positive that this epic closer made far better use of the available New Order-donated technology.

Stockholm Monsters - Partyline

The original scallies and Perry guys and gals weren't afraid to get all controversial and political on our asses with songs like How Corrupt Is Rough Trade?, Your Uniform and this stunning electro post-romantic belter. Issued as a 12" only, one can't help thinking that a radio 7" might, MIGHT, just have landed the Stockies with a minor cult hit back in the day. Somewhat unlike their usual edgy alternative jangle-pop, Partyline is the sort of tune that Pet Shop Boys or New Order might have made if they'd upped the speedball dosage at a Top of the Pops rehearsal. I love this record. Its flipside, Militia, is also essential, making this one of those archetypal Factory singles that works on both sides.

The Railway Children - Brighter

And here's another landmark single. Wigan's oft-forgotten songsmiths The Railway Children knocked out several sprightly singles and a pair of decent albums for both Factory and latterly Virgin Records. Brighter sported great b-sides in History Burns and Careful and sounded like a Top 10 hit all summer long. Great sleeve from Johnson Panas too. How, HOW, did this not strike a chord with the then radio DJs? It still sounds like a burst of summer some thirty years later.

The Wake - Torn Calendar

Melancholy is something that Factory Records was very good at. In Scotland's The Wake, they had it in litres. The band's debut album was Harmony, a solemn post-punk postscript that inadvertently invented twee-pop without actually being 'pop', while celebrated single Talk About The Past earned plaudits aplenty from media to fanbase. But it was the peerless much-delayed Here Comes Everybody LP that really put The Wake amongst the indie pigeons. The entire album is nothing short of a sad-face masterpiece, with the slightly trippy pretty Torn Calendar leading the field of many many centrepieces and would-be singles.

The Names - I Wish I Could Speak Your Language

My first non-JD/NO Factory single purchase was Fac 29, the exemplary Nightshift by Brussels-based rock 'n darkwavers The Names. Along with its powerful boundary-crossing flip I Wish I Could Speak Your Language, here was a 7" single that delivered some of Martin Hannett's most brutal production, without compromising the band's delicate and austere lyricism. Everything about this song demonstrates everything about those involved - the huge smash-snare drums typified by Hannett's dextrous hands, urbane almost paranoid lyrics and subtle uses of synth and guitar hooks. The Names' track record might not have spawned 'hits', but their concise canon contains few misses.

New Order - Everything's Gone Green

This is the record that kickstarted indie dance-music, no arguments. The likes of Franz Ferdinand, LCD Soundsystem, Friendly Fires and The Rapture probably wouldn't have had their 15 seconds / minutes / hours / years of exposure without this truly majestic record. It doesn't say or do much but it does everything. Never mind Blue Monday or Temptation, Everything's Gone Green remains New Order's first active foray into disco hi-hats and club mixes. Extended for a Factory Benelux 12" with new b-sides, EGG is not only one of New Order's most important records, it remains a masterclass by Martin Hannett who was ultimately swiftly spurned by band and label soon after they'd figured out how he operated his studio toys. Its attendant double 'A' Procession is also prime New Order material from the Movement sessions.

John Dowie - Idiot

Often dismissed as too surreal but revered by the likes of Stewart Lee (and myself), Birmingham's rather edgy humourist looked a bit like Jasper Carrott but couldn't have been more different. His attachment to Factory was all too brief with just three odd grin-worthy vignettes on the label's very first release, the double-7" A Factory Sample, and a lone headline single, the somewhat pub-singalong It's Hard To Be An Egg coupled with its 'visual' flip Mime Sketch. All five Factory tracks formed part of his then live poetry shows and were finally gathered together with his half-dozen Virgin label EP tracks and a slew of hilarious live tracks on the album An Arc of Hives. "I'm the kind of idiot who always ends a sentence with question. Don't I?" - we've all met someone like it and there are even more of Dowie's Idiots around nowadays.

Happy Mondays - Weekends

My first encounters with the Mondays were the Factory 'Supertent' gathering in Finsbury Park in 1987 when the band performed a somewhat chaotic set wearing huge parka jackets and puffing on suspect smoking material and the passable single Delightful, aka the Forty-Five E.P. I've always been of the opinion that Ryder's charges were more talented than people gave them credit (or abuse) for. But Delightful didn't help their cause. The two b-sides however certainly did, especially the song Oasis which eventually ended up in re-recorded form on their debut album Squirrel and G-Man 24 Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out). Recorded with a certain John Cale, 24 Hr (etc, etc) is an unexpected funky treasure in Factory's late canon. Perhaps a little more grown-up than the more familiar Madchester material, the gritty street funk of Kuff Dam (Mad Fuck backwards) and Tart Tart became a regular go-to for me at parties, as did Weekends (or Weekend S as it appears on some copies). Its odd galloping rhythm and barbed lyrics is short, sweet and might have made a hit-single in a parallel universe.

Minny Pops - Dolphin's Spurt

Dutch semi-industrialists with a near 7ft tall singer might not sound very Factory, but Minny Pops's brief honeymoon in Manchester spawned two pin-sharp electro-dance singles and an album for sister-label Factory Benelux. With the man Hannett at the helm for this single, both sides of the Dolphin's Spurt 7" are on point to this day, danceable and timeless, littered with its producer's trademark effects and atmospherics and lyrically insistent, nagging and a little confrontational. It's almost impossible to make out the words spat out by singer Wally van Middendorp but who cares? He's bigger than all of us.

Royal Family and the Poor - Visions

Liverpool's Mike Keane was the north-west's resident anarchic occultist, renouncing conventional mass-media and musical practice in favour of creating early demos and live shows of ritualistic chants, highly charged howling and the odd song here and there. After a few personal struggles, Keane's Factory output remains something of a treasure chest. Debut single Art on 45 was a sort of funky My Favourite Things and has since been given the nod by Maximo Park's Paul Smith and first album Temple of the 13th Tribe had a helping hand from Peter Hook and Stockholm Monsters' Lita Hira. For me though, sophomore set We Love The Moon - the Project Phase 2 continues to be Keane's masterpiece. Recorded with Pink Industry's Ambrose Reynolds, WLTM includes the superb Pagan Way (which still isn't on Spotify after all this time) and the 'hit' Visions, a glorious example of Keane's occasional foray into sensitive pop songs.

The Distractions - Time Goes By So Slow

Rightly acclaimed as one of Factory's most charming and rewarding singles, Time Goes By Slow was issued just after the band had already signed to Island. Musically and lyrically embedded in both '60s pop charm a la Adam Faith or The Hollies and post-punk favourites Buzzcocks, The Distractions followed up TGBSS with a handful of singles and a long-forgotten album Nobody's Perfect before taking a lengthy hiatus into the 21st century. More recently, the band have been busy writing and recording for Exeter-based indie Occultation, including the rather splendid sophomore album The End Of The Pier. For me, Fac 12 remains one of Factory Records' most important and timeless early singles.

A Certain Ratio - Waterline

A staple of the band's live set to this day, the funky near-instrumental Waterline was and still is a bit of a game-changer. Unmistakably ACR, the exclusively recorded Fac 52 single ushered in their post-Hannett future with an ankle-deep bassline, vocodered vocals, tight handclap drums and some speaker-bothering effects and atmospherics. Alongside the attendant album Sextet, Waterline with its bonged up and dubbed out flip Funaezekea turned the conventional Brit-funk sounds and ideals into the unconventional. And you can't get a much more unconventional ending to a track than the final 45 seconds on this 12".

- sleevenotes by Paul Pledger/Flipside Reviews for Cerysmatic Factory

Manchester's only jazz band under 46 years of age

2019-09-09T06:30:00.000+01:00

"Trickery is the second instalment of essential black vinyl stuff from Manchester's only jazz band under 46 years of age, Kalima. Four songs - 12" diameter. Aural proof that jazz is still vital and relevant in 1985. Kalima had previously been known to those with ears to hear as The Swamp Children, who recorded the remarkable So Hot album way back in the mists of time. 1982 actually, and there weren't that many young bands playing Latin American influenced jazz roaming the streets that August."

This is an extract from a 1985 press release to promote the Fac 127 'Four Songs' 12" single by Kalima. This particular copy is from the Tony Wilson Collection at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester.

Read the full Kalima press release from 1985.

Factory catalogue number spotters should note the incorrect assignment of Fact 80 to 'So Hot' by Swamp Children. 'Alma Mater' by The Stockholm Monsters, the true Fact 80, had already been released in autumn 1984 so this must just be a typo.

Auteur Labels: Factory Records 1984

2009-05-06T13:26:00.000+01:00

On 1 June, LTM releases a new volume in the ongoing compilation series Auteur Labels, featuring releases on Factory Records in 1984.

"Founded in late 1978, early Factory releases were guided by the five original directors: Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus, Peter Saville, Martin Hannett and Rob Gretton. By 1984 Hannett had departed, and many Factory singles were produced by all four members of New Order under the generic name Be Music. These reflected the influence of New York dance and electro music, though the label's Haçienda nightclub was not yet a conspicuous success. Meanwhile the artier side of Factory remained evident in records by The Durutti Column and Kalima, and pop/rock in The Wake, Stockholm Monsters - and New Order themselves."

The 77 minute remastered CD features several rare edits and tracks, detailed liner notes by James Nice, and archive images.

Tracklisting

1. New Order Lonesome Tonight (7" Edit)
2. Stockholm Monsters Terror
3. The Wake Talk About The Past (7" Edit)
4. Section 25 Reflection
5. Marcel King Reach For Love (New York Remix)
6. 52nd Street Can't Afford (Unorganised Mix)
7. Quando Quango Atom Rock
8. Shark Vegas Pretenders Of Love
9. Abecedarians Smiling Monarchs
10. Red Turns To Deep Sleep
11. The Durutti Column Duet (Without Mercy)
12. Kalima The Smiling Hour
13. Simon Topping Chicas Del Mundo
14. Streetlife On Instinct
15. Lavolta Lakota Prayer

--

Title: Auteur Labels: Factory Records 1984
Label: LTM
Cat No: LTMCD 2534
Released: 1 June 2009

It's better to give than to receive 'positive feedback'

2006-10-02T22:26:00.000+01:00

I recently asked Jan Hargreaves for an update on her sterling work with Rob Gretton's generous bequest to the city of Manchester. I can only post her superb response in full:

Factory, the Hac and Dry - Rob Gretton's legacy at MSIM

"Rob Gretton contacted the Manchester Science & Industry Museum in 1998, when he was clearing out Gainwest's Knott Mill office near Deansgate.

The then Senior Archivist, Penny Feltham, went over to sort through the files, posters, videos and piles of art work and Rob transferred everything over to the Museum in August that year.

Sadly, Rob died before he could sign off the paperwork for the transfer, and it wasn't until 2003 that Peter Hook, as a director of Gainwest, made the transfer official. Contact with Hooky was made with the help of Dave Rofe and Rebecca Boulton.

Rob was an important figure in Manchester's music industry and, through choice during his lifetime, an unsung one. He was the man who decided Manchester needed a superclub to rival those of New York, although he phrased his reasons differently.

The Factory Archive at MSIM is one part of his story. It tells the tale of Rob's involvement in Factory Communications Limited, through minutes of meetings, financial documents and correspondence. Looking through the finance documents is like reading a who's who of whoever was owed money throughout the life of the company. More importantly, it tells Rob's story as the brains behind the Hacienda and Dry Bar.

The archive includes copies of Ben Kelly's architectural plans for both the club and the bar, along with design proofs for cocktail menus for both Dry and the Gay Traitor, samples of wine bottle labels, designs for Dry sugar sachets, guest lists for the Hac and details of which records were played at various club nights. Other revelations come from the pages and pages of door takings for Hacienda nights like Nude, Temperance, Void and Wide. The same sheets list the bands that played at Monday Club through the late 80s.

As a man renowned for his golden ears, Rob's other main input to the company was as an A&R man and band manager. The archive includes around a hundred artwork boards for record sleeves and posters. The majority of these have now been listed and are available for researchers to look at in the Study Area at the Museum. As well as the artwork, there are examples of posters for Hacienda nights, album releases and gigs, and a collection of videos. The videos come in a number of formats, including 1" video and audio masters. Those which can be watched in the Study Area on VHS include promos for singles, live appearances and tv appearances by Joy Division, Happy Mondays, Kalima, Cath Carroll and Revenge, among others.

Cataloguing of the archive is a slow process, but researchers are welcome to visit the Museum to look through it. The Study Area is open Tuesdays to Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.

The Museum is keen to build on this important collection and has been working with the Manchester District Music Archive to help make sure that Manchester's music history is documented properly. It would be an achievement to bring together more strands of the Factory story, including archives from the people who worked there, from artists on the label, from the other Directors, and from the rest of Rob's own collection.

The Museum plans to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Hacienda next year with an exhibition of items from the archive.

If you have any Factory-related documents or objects that you would like to donate to the Museum to help tell the Factory story, please call Jan Hargreaves, the Senior Archivist, on 0161 606 0115 or email archive@msim.org.uk. Contact details for the Collections Centre via this link."

This generous, philanthropic act is a lesson to us all. It is sincerely hoped that the significant remainder of Rob's tangible legacy - future currently uncertain - is treated to the same level of public safekeeping/access and steered far away from potential commercial exploitation. The more people use and enjoy this valuable archive, the better chance we all have of this coming to pass.

LTM's Factory back catalogue on iTunes

2005-06-11T22:30:00.000+01:00

This isn't new news but following on from the post about Quando Quango downloads, not only is the entire Quando Quango LTM back catalogue available in the iTunes Store (at least in the US) but also a wide range of (ex-) Fac artists can be found there too including The Wake, The Names, Thick Pigeon, Section 25, Stockholm Monsters, Revenge, Anna Domino, Kalima and Crispy Ambulance. Still waiting on Cath Carroll and recent catalogue additions A Certain Ratio.

LTM Publishing

Thanks to Mike.

That Swing Out Sister line-up in full

2005-04-11T09:07:00.000+01:00

The current Swing Out Sister UK tour, which has included 3 nights at the Jazz Cafe in London and one at the Life Cafe in Manchester, features a kind of Factory All-Stars band: Corinne Drewery (one-time ACR guest singer, vocals), Andy Connell (ex-ACR, keyboards / programming), Derek Johnson (ex-52nd Street & Quando Quango, bass), Chris Manas (ex-Jazz Defektors & Kalima, percussion), Mikey Wilson (ex-Jazz Defektors & Texas, drums).

Kalima! by Kalima amongst LTM new releases

2005-01-26T13:10:00.000+00:00

News of more new releases LTM HQ from James Nice. The following are now available for mail order purchase ahead of the store release dates:

Kalima - LTMCD 2407 Kalima!

Isabelle Antena - LTMCD 2432 En Cavale

Isabelle Antena - LTMCD 2434 Hoping For Love

The Room - LTMCD 2405 Indoor Fireworks

James says: "all as usual crammed with extra tracks and bios".

Full details on the news page of the LTM website.

Very Eighties ...

2004-08-02T09:06:00.000+01:00

Those Cerysmatic Factory Video Vote results in full:

1. 'True Faith' by New Order - dir. Phillippe Découfflé (Loads of people in funny costumes dance and bounce around to the music interspersed with the band performing. Won the BPI Award for Best Video in 1987. New Order still performed it live on Top of the Pops.)

2. 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' by Joy Division (One Door Closes.....)

3. 'The Perfect Kiss' by New Order - dir. Jonathan Demme. This was shot in New Order's rehearsal room in Cheetham Hill. They got a 24 track mobile studio in to record the music - it was played live. The two blokes that appear unannounced are Andy Robinson, now part-manager of New Order with Rebecca, and Slim, now 'Door Manager' at the Manchester University Student Union. For some reason everyone thinks the appearance of Slim in the video is, in fact, Arthur Baker. It isn't. The Perfect Kiss went on general release in the cinema as a support picture to Stop Making Sense, Jonathan Demme's seminal concert film of Talking Heads.

4. 'WFL' by Happy Mondays dir. The Bailey Brothers

5. 'Step On' by Happy Mondays (The 24 Hour Party People website article on The Bailey Brothers tells the story: For the shoot of the 'Step On' video, the crew shipped out to Barcelona. Locations were set for the five day shoot. Everyone was ready, but the band wasn't there. "We were waiting in Barcelona for the best part of four days, without having heard anything from anybody in terms of when they were going to turn up." recalls Keith. "They turned up to do the video at 3 o clock on the last day we were in Barcelona. We had something completely different planned, obviously, and we had locations that we were going to go to and we had this whole video planned out. With a day to go we were accepting that we were going to have to change that quite radically, and with three hours to go, we were literally thinking on our feet 'what's the only plausible thing we can do in the three hours?'" The promo was shot in and around the hotel they were staying at, with Shaun sitting on top of a huge neon E sign. The Director of Photography frantically tried to grab as much footage as possible as the sun set, but left feeling they didn't have enough footage. "We showed him the finished video and he loved it. We did tend to shoot lots of super 8, there was lots of other stuff around, not just the Super 16 camera going - so he was quite surprised that there was some other stuff dropped in.")

6. 'Confusion' by New Order (Ignore the crap subplot about the girls going to the disco. This basically shows you the early New Order mid dance-epihany in NYC and captures a pivotal moment, in a shoddy and amateurish way - so very Factory!)

7. 'Wrote For Luck' by Happy Mondays dir. The Bailey Brothers.

8. 'Shack Up' by A Certain Ratio (original Factory video for Palatine)

9. 'Bizarre Love Triangle' by New Order - dir. Robert Longo ("I don't believe in reincarnation because I refuse to come back as a bug or a rabbit!")

10. 'Run' by New Order - dir. Robert Frank, produced by Michael Shamberg

Honourable mentions to ... 'Nightshift' by The Names, 'Genius' by Quando Quango, 'New Horizon' by Section 25, 'The Smiling Hour' (Ann Quigley leaves work in Sunley Tower, Manchester and goes out for a drink at Corbieres) by Kalima, 'Sounds Like Something Dirty (Live on The Tube)', 'Back To The Start', 'Knife Slits Water' by A Certain Ratio, 'Lazyitis' (in prison where they belong playing footie in the pissing rain, Karl Denver catching pneumonia) by Happy Mondays, 'Here To Stay', 'Round & round', 'Shellshock', 'Fine Time', 'Blue Monday', 'Ceremony' by New Order, 'Laid' by James (strictly ex-Fac), 'My Rising Star' by Northside, 'The Missing Boy' and 'Domo Arigato' by The Durutti Column (the second one a long-form entry that sneaked in), 'Eat Y'Self Fitter' by The Fall (on an IKON video release), 'Get The Message' by Electronic, 'Talk About The Past' by The Wake.

Thanks to everyone who voted and also those who provided annotations. You know who you are.

May I have the envelope please...

2003-12-02T18:00:00.000+00:00

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the result of the Cerysmatic Factory Top Ten Competition. In traditional fashion the runner up is announced first and it is Mike Stein from the USA (who wins a special consolation prize):

My Top 10 (for what its worth...)

1. FAC 183 - New Order "True Faith": New Order's highest chart position at the time and still one of their best pop singles. Peter Saville's artwork for both the standard and remix 12"s remains his best. Enough said.

2. FAC 34/FACT 35 - A Certain Ratio and ESG recording with Hannett in New Jersey: Factory goes to New York for the first time and records two seminal dance punk records across the river at EARS in New Jersey with Martin Hannett [->] at the knobs. One of the resulting ESG recordings would go on to become a Larry Levan favorite ("Moody") and another one of the most sampled records in hip-hop history ("UFO"). The equally groundbreaking ACR LP ("To Each") would forever be shrouded in myth due to the resetting of Hannett's mixing board settings by a studio engineer.

3. FAC 126 - "Alan Goes to Moscow": In true Factory fashion, an absolutely beautiful poster commemorating absolutely nothing. Alan's trip was a failure and it took another five years for Factory Classical to become established. Nevertheless, the poster works quite well in my living room!

4. FACT 275 - New Order "Technique" artwork: Saville goes Warhol to bring us some of his brightest and most memorable sleeves. The LP artwork, along with the "Fine Time," "Round & round," and "Run 2" singles were Saville's hottest streak for New Order.

5. FAC 242 - Happy Mondays "Madchester" EP: Hallelujah indeed! The Madchester frenzy begins leading to two years of NME front covers on the Mondays and Roses, along with countless MTV specials and magazine articles exploiting the scene surrounding the Hacienda. The single not only proved Hannett's continued viability, but launched the still on-going careers of Paul Oakenfold and Andy Weatherall, who produced the remixes for FAC 242R.

6. FACT 14 - The Durutti Column "The Return of...": Factory's way of "killing us softly with his song." The LP was an ahead of its time paradox of punk anarchy and Vini's tranquil guitar all wrapped in sandpaper. John Lydon threatened to destroy your record collection with a sandpaper sleeve but instead opted for a metal canister. In a Wilsonesque act of situationist fandom, Factory actually executed the concept.

7. FACT 75 - New Order "Power Corruption and Lies" artwork: Saville moves a step forward from his Graphica Industria phase to juxtapose Fantin-Latour's "Roses," a nod to 60s flower power, with Saville's self-invented color coded numbering schema for the computer age. The result was the perfect sleeve for New Order's movement (Movement - get it?) to sequencer driven pop. Saville's color coding concept was also brilliantly carried on New Order's associated "Blue Monday" (FAC 73) and "Confusion" (FAC 93) singles as well as Section 25's "From the Hip" LP (FACT 90).

8. FACT 210 - Cath Carroll "England Made Me": An ashamedly underrated LP. An eclectic mix of Cath's soulful voice with dance pop, Brazilian rhythms, and a touch of Steve Albini. Like many Factory productions, it was expensive to make and didn't sell well!

9. FACT 250 / FAC 213 - Joy Division "Substance" and "Atmosphere" artwork: It is extremely difficult to limit the number of Joy Division / New Order sleeves from this list, but Saville's work for the "Substance" retrospective and its accompanying single "Atmosphere" was again timeless. The posters for the album and single incorporating the Jan Van Munster sculptures are particularly stunning. As always, Saville's artwork would not be as special were it not backed with some of the best pop gems of the last century.

10. FAC 331 - Ben Kelly board room table: Quite simply an ultra modern and expensive table that the Mondays broke! One of Factory's greatest examples of hedonism and corporate waste - well before the dot com boom. It also made for a great scene in "24 Hour Party People" with Paddy Considine (playing Rob Gretton) trying to strangle Steve Coogan (playing Tony Wilson).

Thanks very much to Mike. But now, the winner – Andrew James from Blighty:

My 10 — Not a top 10, 'cos no way is 'Can't Afford To' better than 'Flight', but 10 good reasons to like the label.

New Order Play At Home. Long before Big Brother and Wife Swap, Channel 4 was known for innovative programming, and once a week in late 1983 (?) let various groups loose with cameras and total editorial control. Siouxsie and the Banshees created a surreal homage to Alice In Wonderland, Level 42 waxed lyrical about the Isle of Wight, and New Order chatted to their mates about Factory in this one hour documentary. Includes priceless footage of a naked AHW explaining "praxis" to a fully clothed Gillian Gilbert — in the bath — and Bruce Mitchell in the Hacienda bar, regaling sundry Fac artists with tales of Wilson’s parsimony.

Fact 204 The Guitar and Other Machines Durutti Column Martin Hannett and Vini produced some sublime moments to be sure, but for me, DC’s greatest producer was Stephen Street, and this was the best of their collaborations. Their "White Rabbit" from around this period is equally good, but you have to get the original 12" version on The City Of Our Lady single, and not the watered-down mix tacked on to the Domo Arigato reissue.

Fac 92 Reach For Love Marcel King Why wasn’t Marcel King a huge star?

Fact 210 England Made Me Cath Carrol They spent zillions making it, then only had 47p left to promote it. An overlooked masterpiece.

Fac 104 Tube special Madonna, Martin Fry, plus the Factory All-Stars. And Leslie Ash, post-Quadrophenia, pre-collagen injections, if I remember correctly.

Fac 201 Dry All the style bars of the 90s owe Ben Kelly.

Fac 52 Waterline ACR ACR: always the bridesmaids, never the bride. This was 20 years ahead of its time. And quite a few months before Blue Monday.

Fac 118 Can’t Afford To 52nd Street. Though often accused of being raincoat-wearing miserablists, Factory were always diverse, and never more so than with 52nd Street, who were closer to Five Star than Fad Gadget. Diane Charlemagne later enjoyed success with The Key and sang backing vocals for Goldie. If your friends tell you the label was po-faced, show 'em the video for this.

Fact 219 Flyaway Kalima, like 52nd Street, are rarely mentioned on the Faclist. Am I allowed to say "overlooked" again? For me, though, groups like Kalima and the Jazz Defektors (and John Dowie and Steve Martland) are what make Factory more interesting than, say, Sarah and InTape. This compilation is a good place to start.

Factus 17 Young, Popular and Sexy Various Artists Michael Shamberg's finest moment (and pretty much the Factus swansong). Includes Shark Vegas' fantastic "Pretenders of Love". And "No New Order".

Nice one Andrew. Your Cerysmatic Factory mousemat is on its way.