V.A. Saturday

Be Music was the name used by members of New Order when they undertook production work outside the band. Peter Hook used it first when producing what became a Stockholm Monsters B-side in 1982. After that all four members used it at one time or another. Bernard's interest in synths, production and the studio meant that in the period 1983- 85 he used it often, co- producing and/ or programming on some groundbreaking singles and tracks by a raft of Manchester and Factory acts, often with ACR's Dojo (Donald Johnson) alongside him- their work on 52nd Street's Cool As Ice, Section 25's From A Hilltop and Marcel King's Reach For  should be lauded from the hilltops, sung from the rooves of the tower blocks, but these are songs largely unknown. Tony Wilson said Marcel King's Reach For Love should have been Factory's biggest hit single. Unfortunately in 1984 for ideological reasons Factory eschewed things such as promotion and pluggers and so hardly anyone got to hear it. 

Reach For Love

In 2003 LTM compiled an album of Be Music tracks, all from the period 1983 to 1985, called Cool As Ice: The Be Music Productions. Reach For Love is on it, as the other two I mentioned above. The compilation has twelve tracks on it, a selection of the Be Music catalogue. Every single one is streets ahead of the competition. Here's a handful of them.

Quando Quango were Mike Pickering's band, formed in The Netherlands and then relocating to Manchester. Mike and Hillegonda Rietveld were electronic/ electro pioneers making two ahead of their time singles and an album (Pigs And Battleships). One of those singles was Love Tempo. The other was Atom Rock which featured not just Mike and Hillegonda but also ex- ACR singer/ percussionist Simon Topping and a moonlighting Johnny Marr with Bernard and Dojo producing (recorded in Cheadle Hulme south Manchester suburb/ geography fans!) and released on Factory as Fac 102. Futuristic Manc- funk. 

Atom Rock

Far more obscure are/were Nyam Nyam, a band from Hull discovered by Hooky. He produced a single, released on Factory Benelux in 1984, recorded at Strawberry Studios, Stockport. Factory- esque, flat northern vocals with rippling Moroder synths and that grey sheen of Be Music production. 

Fate/ Hate

Section 25 were from Blackpool. They released several records on Factory, albums and singles. All are worthy of investigation. Looking From A Hilltop uses an 808 and as as innovative as anything else anyone was doing in 1983. Bernard also produced Beating Heart, a 1983 single on Factory (Fac 68), dance gloom, synths and very Sumner sounding guitars and more lovely northern singing, 'My beating heart/ Beats for you/ Only you'.

Beating Heart

Be Music Theme was recorded by Hooky in 1983, designed as intro music for Stockholm Monsters gigs (Peter often mixed their sound live). It is I suppose the first solo New Order track, years ahead of Electronic, Revenge and The Other Two. It came out on a 1986 compilation, The Quick Neat Job (out on Crepescule, a French label Factory had links with). Otherwise, Cool As Ice is the only place its ever been released. 

Be Music Theme 

Nowhere To Nowhere And E2 To E4

More new music, guaranteed to put a spring in your step and a smile on your face- it did mine anyway- as spring springs, greenery is finally appearing on threadbare trees and there's an occasional glimpse of something called the sun. 

Psychederek lives in Stretford and has made some wonderful tracks in recent years- the Space Arcade EP, Test Card Girl and At The Mountains Of Madness can all be found at Bandcamp and are all worth digging into. Last week he announced the release of an EP titled Alt!, four tracks digitally and on vinyl (all available from early June). There are two to listen to now here, the first a six minute technicolour throb that starts like it's already been playing somewhere else for a while called Nowhere To Nowhere, a song for a psychedelic Stretford, choppy guitars, motorik drums, wired guitar and synth toplines, chunky percussion and  bumping one note bassline. The second is a cover of 808 State's Pacific, a song that I'm happy to hear in almost any version/ remix/ cover, a cover that sets out adrift on memory bliss, a tripped out mellowed out, slowed down, psyched out sunbaked cover with A Certain Ratio's Donald Johnson on drums. If the other two tracks on Alt! are as good, we have one of the EPs of the year looking at us. 

A month ago Psychederek released Tongue- Tied, a single cut from similar (tie dyed) cloth, starting out all laid back with drifting vox but then picking up the pace when the drums kick in. Tongue- Tied is at Bandcamp with a pair of excellent Moodymanc remixes to boot. 

That was to be the end of this post but I got in yesterday and a friend had tipped me off to this, Alex Kassian covering Manuel Gottsching's classic E2- E4, a twelve minute electronic ride into kosmiche/ Balearic/ cosmic disco from Berlin. If that's not enough there are two Mad Professor dub remixes (not available to listen to yet. The full release comes out in late May along with the 12" vinyl- and yes, I've missed out on the vinyl too. Listen etc here. Twelve minutes and twenty one seconds of your day you won't regret. 

Alex Kassian's Spirit Of Eden came out in 2021, one of my favourite releases from that year, a record I do not believe I will ever tire of, a track that sits in a space somewhere between the sun sinking into a melting Mediterranean sea, cosmic dub jazz and the theme tune to The Rockford Files. But miles better than that sounds. 

Spirit Of Eden

Forty Minutes Of Fac

In the 1980s Factory Records was the best record label in the world. Based on Palatine Road, a stone's throw from where I grew up, managed as a Marxist art project, bankrolled by New Order and home to a bunch of sullen, wilful experimental artists who famously signed no contracts and owned all their music, it put out record after record, almost none of which were hits. Today's mix is a small selection of the magnificence that came out of Factory in the mid- 80s (deliberately leaving out New Order), a period where the combined talents clustered around the table at 86 Palatine Road produced such life affirming and ground breaking music. 

Forty Minutes Of Fac

• Cabaret Voltaire: Yashar (John Robie Remix)
• Quando Quango: Genius
• Stockholm Monsters: All At Once
• Section 25: Looking From A Hilltop (Megamix)
• Marcel King: Reach For Love
• A Certain Ratio: Mickey Way (The Candy Bar)
• Durutti Column: For Belgian Friends

Yashar (John Robie Remix) by Cabaret Voltaire is Fac 82. Cabaret Voltaire released just this single 12" for Factory. 

Genius by Quando Quango is Fact 137. Quando Quango were formed in Rotterdam by Mike Pickering with Hillegonda Rietveld and Reinier Rietveld with former ACR singer Simon Topping joining on percussion. 

All At Once by Stockholm Monsters is Fac 107. Stockholm Monsters are the best band to come out of Burnage. 

Looking From A Hilltop (Megamix) by Section 25 is Fac 108, released in 1984, and still sounds like the future. It was produced by Donald Johnson of ACR and Bernard Sumner of New Order as Be Music. 

Reach For Love by Marcel King is FBN 43, released in 1985, and should have been number one in every country in the world. Also produced by Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson. 

Mickey Way (The Candy Bar) by A Certain Ratio is Fac 168 from 1986. It was also on the album Force, ACR's last album for Factory (Fact 166). 

For Belgian Friends is by Durutti Column and first appeared on A Factory Quartet, Fact 24, in 1980 and then on Valuable Passages, a Durutti Column compilation from 1986 Fac 164. Donald Johnson plays drums. Vini Reilly is one of the true geniuses to be found on Palatine Road during the period. He still lives nearby. 

Fifty Two

A few people have said that the first anniversaries are the toughest following a death- memorably a friend with experience of this wrote in a card to us 'the first everything fucks'. Today is my birthday, my 52nd, and the first in our household since Isaac died. I haven't really been looking forward to it, it feels like it will bring a lot up. Isaac loved a birthday, he always had a list of activities which had to be observed. He insisted on any of our birthdays that the Happy Birthday banner being hung up in the kitchen, that presents be placed in a pile on the kitchen table, that there must be a card with a monkey on it (always, every time) and cake and candles at tea. Having my first birthday without him feels very sad, another reminder of his absence and our loss. It's another thing we have to go through though, there's no avoiding it and I guess there will come a time when it feels less painful.

Today is also the day of two other significant birthdays shared with friends, one (Daisy) turning eighteen and the other (Sophie) turning fifty. Happy birthday to you both (although I'd be surprised if either of them read this). 

52nd Street were a jazz/ funk/ r 'n' b band who signed to Factory, active around Manchester when the 70s turned into the 80s. Bassist Derek Johnson is the brother of A Certain Ratio's drummer Donald and after being seen at Band On The Wall by Rob Gretton they became a Factory act. Tony Wilson had them on Granada Reports twice, they recorded at Strawberry Studios and eventually, as major label A&M came sniffing around the group, they were managed by Lindsay Reade (Tony Wilson's wife/ ex- wife and one of the unsung women at the Factory HQ on Palatine Road). In 1983 they released one of Factory's bona fide classic singles of the period, Cool As Ice (although strictly speaking it didn't come out in the UK, being released on Factory Benelux in Europe and the USA). Produced by Donald Johnson with Bernard Sumner programming the synth (and under the name Be Music, the catch all production title for any New Order productions of other groups whether it was Bernard, Stephen, Gillian or Hooky individually or collectively, often with Donald at the desk as well). Cool As Ice is  uptempo, dancefloor heaven, synths bubbling away and plenty of '83 electro energy. It's easy to imagine Madonna covering it a few years later. Play it back to back with the other great Factory singles from 1983 and 1984- Marcel King's Reach For Love, Section 25's Looking From A Hilltop, Quando Quango's Love Tempo- and its clear that New Order isn't the only story being written at Palatine Road and on Whitworth Street. 

Cool As Ice

Antwerpen

We should have been in Belgium this week, a few days in Antwerp and Brussels for my fiftieth, frites and beer, cafes on squares, some browsing of record shops and some sightseeing. We'll have to see if we can get there for my fifty- first. In 1980 Vini Reilly wrote this beautiful, shimmering, fluid piece of  abstract guitar music. Produced by Hannett and with ACR's Donald Johnson on drums

For Belgian Friends

This cover version by Dream Lovers came out back in 2017, an even more blissed out, laid back version than Vini's original.



Belgium also says Belgian new Beat, proto- house music built on juddering drum machines, wonky basslines and vocal samples. Most of this music is the best part of thirty to thirty five years old. Selecting one track from random out of a forty three song compilation called The Best Of Belgian New Beat Vol. 1 brings up this by Chayell from 1989, a moody synth monster with a voice intoning 'with a girl like me'.

Don't Even Think About It

I Just Want To See Your Face

Section 25, from Poulton- le- Fylde near Blackpool, formed in 1977, enthused by punk and its possibilities. In 1979 they shared a stage with Joy Division at Blackpool's Imperial Hotel and from there were invited by Rob Gretton to play at the Russell Club in Hulme and then on to signing to Factory. By 1983 an expanded line up were heading towards the future, away from post punk guitars and into electronic dance music. Their 1984 single Looking From A Hilltop, produced by Bernard Sumner and ACR's Donald Johnson under their Be Music name, is one of the best records Factory released, a proto- techno/electro masterpiece, dark synth- pop, Moroder on the Golden Mile, with whip crack backwards drums, low slung bass and an icy vocal from Jenny Ross.

The album From The Hip, has one of Peter Saville's most beautiful sleeves- the poles on the front cover use the same colour wheel code he'd used on the Power, Corruption And Lies and Blue Monday sleeves. The Megamix version of Looking From A Hilltop on the 12" made it's way to New York's clubs and to the early Chicago house scene. Along with Marcel King's Reach For Love and 52nd Street's Cool As Ice, Looking From A Hilltop proves that it wasn't all just about New Order at Palatine Road in 1984. The version I'm posting here is from a session Section 25 did for David Kid Jenson at the BBC, 10th May 1984.

Looking From A Hilltop (BBC session)

Reach For Love

One of the best things about Factory Records was that in the early years of its existence the label put no pressure on artists to conform or play the industry game. Commercial considerations were way down the list of essential requirements for a release. Art came first. Not to say they didn't want a hit every now and then to pay the bills but the musicians were more or less given the freedom to record anything they wanted to, to experiment and to explore.

The other side of this, which was probably just as important as the one above theoretically (and Factory's directors especially Tony Wilson were very into their theory), is that in attempting to prove that an independent record label could stand alone outside the majors, they also refused to play the game. To Wilson this meant, certainly in the first half of the 80s, that there would be no promotion, no pluggers, no advertising (apart from bill posters). The records would sell themselves because they were brilliant and because they packaged inside beautiful sleeves.

This worked fine for New Order. New Order could release a single, a work of art on 12 inches of vinyl housed in a Peter Saville sleeve, and know that a fanbase of  60- 80, 000 people would buy it within a week of it being released. However, as Stephen Morris pointed out to Wilson in what became a heated debate 'while sitting in the studio for hours waiting for Bernard to redo his guitar for the umpteenth time', this policy of no promotion (or anti-promotion) was letting the bands down. Wilson replied that 'the trouble with you is that you're too money- minded'.

If ever there was a record that came out on Factory that should have been a massive hit and wasn't it was Reach For Love by Marcel King. It was produced by Be Music, the catch all name for New Order band members producing other artists. In this case, the producer was Bernard Sumner along with ACR's Donald Johnson (who played many of the instruments as well). Released in 1984 Reach For Love is a fantastic piece of dancefloor soul, a tough, urban sounding record packed with electronic rhythms and a pulsing bassline and topped with a beautiful vocal from Marcel. It should have been number 1. It wasn't. Marcel had been at the top of the charts ten years earlier with the group Sweet Sensation and according to legend was found by Rob Gretton sleeping in a car and offered the opportunity to make a record on the spot. He died of a brain haemorrhage in 1995 aged just 38. Factory made many of the greatest pieces of pop culture of the late 20th century but they also fucked it up many times. Maybe they fucked it up for the right reasons but not selling a million copies of this single is a fuck up however you slice it. Your Monday however will be immeasurably improved by pressing play.

Reach For Love 

Pretenders Of Love

That was a tough week just gone and probably one to come (for various reasons but y'know, onwards and upwards- we still have music to keep us going). Shark Vegas were a Berlin based band, containing Mark Reeder, who was the Factory Records man in Germany. He put together Shark Vegas, and went through some line up changes including a drummer, Tommy Wiedler, who went on to The Bad Seeds. They supported New Order in 1984 and had a song (You Hurt Me) that was produced by Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson (as Be Music). Bernard wanted to release as a single and played guitar over the end section. In 1987 a compilation called Young, Popular And Sexy (FAC US 17) was released in the US and Australia. On it was this long forgotten song, a bit of a lost electro-pop classic- yes, there are bits of it where it sounds massively like New Order.

Pretenders Of Love

I don't have a MP3 of You Hurt Me but here's the 12" version from Youtube (FAC 111 and recorded at Conny Plank's studio in 1984).

I Just Want To See Your Face

In the early 80s Factory signed lots of bands who sounded very Factory. Many of them struggled to escape from the long shadow cast by Joy Division and New Order. Occasionally someone would produce something that stepped forward from those shadows. Section 25's Looking From A Hilltop, from 1984, is one of those records. The single release had this version on the B-side, produced by Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson from ACR (as Be Music), it is years ahead of itself. A pulsing bassline, percussion and drum machine way up front, with layers of synths, guitars and noises and hard to hear vocals. It is one of Factory's most startling moments and despite being eight minutes long it never feels like it. Various underground djs and left of the dial radio stations in the States picked up on it pushing it further onwards. From Blackpool too. Kiss me quick.

Looking From A Hilltop (Megamix)

Belgian Friends

Factory Friday, Durutti Column. Vini Reilly has made something near thirty albums as Durutti Column (him, usually drummer Bruce Mitchell, occasionally a few others). Inside those albums are hundreds of songs, that have attracted a wide variety of labels- post punk, modern-classical, jazz, dream pop- but as Vini has said, and I paraphrase, 'I don't know why people get so hung up about forms, they're all just silly tunes innit?'

In amongst all those hundreds of 'silly tunes' there are some moments of brilliance so beautiful words cannot do them justice. For Belgian Friends wasn't even on a proper album, appearing on the compilation release A Factory Quartet (FACT 24) alongside songs by Kevin Hewick, The Royal Family And The Poor and Blurt. It later turned up on Domo Arigato too. Donald Johnson of ACR plays drums on For Belgian Friends, and his rhythms give it a dancier sensibility, while Vini's guitar and piano play intertwining melodies. Martin Hannett is at the controls.

For Belgian Friends

This fan-made video is good fun.

Genius

Genius might be overplaying it but it isn't too far off. Before M-People, before T Coy, Mike Pickering formed Quando Quango with Gonnie Rietveld and her drumming brother Reinier Rietveld. ACR's drummer Donald Johnson helped out too. They made dance music before such a thing really existed, combining the energy of New York's early 80s music scene with northern European tastes. Gonnie described it as 'Fela Kuti meets Kraftwerk somewhere between Manchester and Rotterdam' This song has manipulated voices, slow and fast, intoning the groups's name, spiraling piano parts, a Latin vibe and synths. It should have had them bouncing all over the Hacienda's dancefloor, except this was 1985- The Smiths held sway. And although this song is now thirty years old it still sounds really fresh. I like it so much I think we'll have two period piece pictures to go with it.

Genius

Looking From A Hilltop

Section 25 came from Blackpool, land of piers, amusement arcades and rides, Kiss-Me-Quick hats and violent pubs. They landed at Factory Records and in 1985 released this 12" single, following the previous year's album, an utterly groundbreaking and forward thinking piece of electro-pop, pulsing and throbbing, cold and northern. Produced by Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson as Be Music, it is one of the best songs Factory Records put out.



The other side of the 12" was this eight minute dancefloor version, which does not sound out of place now.

Looking From A Hilltop (Megamix)