Forty Five Minutes Of Factory Floor And Gabe Gurnsey

Friday's Factory Floor single Two Different Ways sent me back into the group's back catalogue. I've also been playing Factory Floorer Gabe Gurnsey's Diablo a lot recently, an album that is up there with this year's best to these ears. Factory Floor, a trio but then slimmed down to Gurnsey (drums, programming, synths, production, vocals) and Nik Colk (vocals, guitar, samples) started out in the mid- 00s, all post punk dread and industrial noise before hitting a Chris and Cosey inspired, acid house/ techno groove. Dystopic dance music. Synth- noir. No wave electronica. 'Unsettling disco' according to New Order's Stephen Morris who has worked with them (like Morris, Gurnsey is a Macclesfield man). 

The idea to sequence a bunch of FF and GG tracks together seemed like a good one but technically has been quite tricky. I use Audacity where it's a matter of drop and drag, lining them up next to each other, slightly overlapping to give the impression of mixing. But without any actual DJ software, getting tracks to segue and mix properly can be difficult and this one took a lot of playing around with. There were a few that didn't make the cut- Two Different Ways and the Factory Floor remix of Grinderman were both vying for inclusion but didn't make it. 

The tracks here won't ease you into Sunday gently but if you want modular synths, acid squiggles, thumping 808 kick drums, slowly building tension and blank/ sexually charged vocals (courtesy of Colk on Factory Floor and Tilly Morris on Gabe's Diablo) to throw yourself around the kitchen to, then give it a whirl.

Forty Five Minutes Of Factory Floor And Gabe Gurnsey

• Factory Floor: Heart Of Data
• Daniel Avery: Drone Logic (Factory Floor Remix)
• Gabe Gurnsey: Eyes Over
• Gabe Gurnsey: Push
• Gabe Gurnsey: You Remind Me
• Factory Floor: ~(REALLOVE) (An Optimo (Espacio) Remix)
• Factory Floor: Ya

Heart Of Data came out in 2018, a pulsing modular synth score to Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis, commissioned by London's Science Museum). Highly recommended. 

The remix of Daniel Avery's Drone Logic came out in 2013 along with a multitude of other remixes from Avery's first album. 

Eyes Over is from Gabe Gurnsey's first solo album, Physical, released in 2018. Eyes Over was a single and came with a very good extended dub mix on the 12".

Push and You Remind Me are two of the standouts from this year's Diablo, both with vocals from Tilly Morris. 'This is the kind of feeling I could ride forever/ Let's push together', Tilly sing speaks on Push, sounding like you're there for her amusement solely. 'You remind me of a sunrise/ You remind me of a good time', she sings on the latter, again sounding like she's pretty much done with your shit. 

Real Love (or ~(REALLOVE) came out in 2011 on DFA and was remixed by Scottish legends Optimo. A track that really goes for it brackets- wise and produced by Stephen Morris. 

Ya was on Factory Floor's 2016 album 2525, a juddering, minimal, floor filling electronic dance record with one foot in the Hacienda. 

You Remind Me

Gabe Gurnsey's second solo album Diablo came out last week, a ten track audio pleasure as brightly coloured as the pink vinyl it's pressed onto. Gabe has taken house music/ dance music's physicality and pushed it into autumn 2022. It's a full on, immersive record, that pulsates and throbs and draws you in. 808 rhythms, distorted synths, wobbly basslines, intense production where every element is perfectly clear and present, it's quite a ride. On top of these slices of late 80s/ early 90s house, Tilly Morris' voice, sometimes sounding like she's just been woken up and forced to the microphone, sometimes chopped up and stuttering, as the strobe- lit tracks bounce around her. My favourite currently is You Remind Me.

You Remind Me is six and half minutes of dark, basement synths, squelching bass, thumping drums and sounds ricocheting at the edge of the mix and Tilly intoning, half awake, half breathily blissed out, 'You remind me/ Of a sunrise/ You remind me/ You remind me of a good time... I'll take you by surprise'. The breakdown and ghostly noises at around five minutes followed by the 808's riding back in is exhilarating stuff, a reductionist version of New Order in '89 when they were fully seduced by the dance floor. 

The New Order reference isn't that wide of the mark. Tilly Morris is the daughter of Stephen and Gillian, the apple not falling far from the tree in Macclesfield. Gabe Gurnsey is also the drummer in industrial noise/ analogue synth duo Factory Floor. His first solo album, Physical from 2017, was an equally intense and rhythmic ride, slightly less fully realised than much of Diablo maybe, but well worth seeking out. This version of the single Eyes Over, the Extended Dub, is a blast. 

Eyes Over (Extended Dub)

Push

New out last week (in advance of an album, Diablo, in September) comes another floor shaker from Gabe Gurnsey, with Tilly Morris on vocals. Gabe's day job is half of Factory Floor but back in 2018 he released a solo album called Physical which was one of my favourites from that year, a record built around relentless Hacienda rhythms, warm, chunky synths and deadpan, veering on blank, vocals. The twin singles were massive highlights- Eyes Over and Harder Rhythm, the album soundtracking a night out gradually unfolding. 

This time around Gabe has gone back to similar sources and by the sounds of Push, come up with equally insistent and compelling results. Mid- 80s synth squiggles and rushes, a massive synthesised bassline, juddering programmed drums and Tilly's cool vox, icily declaring 'your touch is heaven... let's push together'. For the full fat version, you'll want to get the seven minute extended mix at Bandcamp. You might have twigged also from the surname and the looks of Tilly in the video below that she is daughter of New Order's Other Two, Stephen and Gillian Morris.