A Certain Ratio – In Session for Marc Riley – BBC 6 Music – Recorded and broadcast live on April 12, 2023 – BBC
A Certain Ratio to head us into the weekend. Recorded live for Marc Riley on April 12th of this year and broadcast the same day (as well as an extra song which appeared on Gideon Coe’s program which followed right after) on BBC 6 Music.
In case you missed it, A Certain Ratio are knee-deep in their 2023 tour, which kicked off in March and, by the looks of it, is wrapping up at the end of this month (although there is one concert announced in August and another in November). The tour has been in support of their latest release, 1982 which came out at the end of March which marks their eleventh release since 1979.
A Certain Ratio (abbreviated as ACR) formed in Flixton, Lancashire in 1977 by Peter Terrell (guitar, electronics) and Simon Topping (vocals, trumpet), with additional members Jez Kerr (bass guitar, vocals), Martin Moscrop (trumpet, guitar), Donald Johnson (drums), and Martha Tilson (vocals) joining soon after.
Among the first white indie groups to draw heavy influence from funk as well as disco and Latin percussion, the band were among the 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 UK independent releases, highlighted by “Flight” and “Waterline,” and released five studio albums beginning with The Graveyard and the Ballroom (1980).
Following late 1980s and early 1990s phases with major-label A&M and Rob Gretton’s independent Robs Records, ACR were intermittently active. They returned to the studio for their ninth studio album Mind Made Up (2008) and since then have continued to perform, with their back catalogue recirculated through an arrangement with Mute Records. ACR continued to perform into the 2020s, and during 2017–2019 expanded, reissued, and anthologized their catalogue once more, this time through Mute Records, through whom they continue to release new recordings.
One of the great bands of the 80s that’s still going strong, this session for Marc Riley, recorded just a few days ago, gives ample proof.
You know what to do – it’s the weekend after all.
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