Various ‎Artists – "From Brussels With Love" (Les Disques Du Crépuscule ‎– TWI 007) 1980

They say, 'You either love Brussels or Hate them', like marmite.
They are, of course, referring to the noble sprout rather than the capital of the  European Union.
Its a 50/50 split, not unlike the famous 'will of the British public', when it comes to loving or hating the European Union.A rather nietzchien statement from same pitiful twerps who formed the German national socialist workers party in the 1920's.
The stats on this compilation on Ian Curtis' ex-girlfriend Annik Honoré's(RIP) 'Disques du Crepescule' label, should be rather more clean cut than Brexit.
Showcasing the close ties between Brussels and with Factory records in Britain. Its a mixture of stuff from both labels and a smattering of highbrow artists from Eno's Obscure label.
As this post marks the end of our trip in the Belgian underground, and its flavour is distinctly British, it gives one the opportunity to segue smoothly into some UK synth, that was obvious highly influential to the Belgian scene and beyond. It wasn't just Kraftwerk and Suicide that shaped the near future, infact one of these influetial figures is on this tape,personified in John Foxx.Then of course we have Eno.....so godlike that we only refer to him reverentially by a single word......E Knows y'know, Eno does.
As for Brussels, the vegetable, I love them.....but Bollocks to Brexit.And if you support Brexit then Bollocks to you!
Any right wing post-truth propaganda in the comments section will be no-platformed and deleted, so don't fucking bother.

DOWNLOAD some seasonal vegetables HERE!

Joy Division - "27th August 1979: Leigh Open Air Festival, also known as "Zoo Meets Factory Half Way" (Bootleg)

Well worth two quid was the August bank Holiday line-up for the Leigh Pop Festival in 1979.
The Joy Division set was, as usual, intense .Luckily most of it was recorded over the soundboard,and has a very immediate 'live' quality about it,with clunky bass and slightly distorted vocals.
The last couple of tracks are taken from an inferior audience recording of the same concert.
As ever,profoundly exciting.

Tracklist:

01. Leaders Of Men
02. Colony
03. Insight
04. Digital
05. Dead Souls
06. Shadowplay
07. She's Lost Control
08. Transmission
09. Interzone
10. The Sound Of Music (incomplete)

DOWNLOAD some bank holiday joy HERE!

A Certain Ratio ‎– "The Graveyard And The Ballroom" (Factory ‎– Fact 16) 1980

One of the earliest of the post-punk crowd to introduce the 'Funk'into the 'Punk', was Manchester's shorts wearing doom funk merchants, A Certain Ratio.

Factory undoubtedly flirted with Fascist chic,both in their artwork and the group names.There are obvious examples,but here we're looking at 'A Certain Ratio'. Their name came from a speech by Hitler referring to the ratio of Jewish blood someone needed to have before they were considered as being a Jew.This was later explained away as coming from Eno's song "The True Wheel".....if correct, maybe they should have done a bit more research before using it.....but then again why not? These days all one has to do is mention anything 'Third Reich'-y, and the finger pointers are out labelling one a Nazi.Which is a major violation of the old adage, "Forget the past and you're doomed to repeat it".

A bit like pop music and art I suppose. 

Back when Cassettes were futuristic in conception,this cassette only release,hit the streets in February 1980,and came in plastic pouches of various colours and designs.Not very Nazi-chic,until you see the photo of four sharp young men clad in various tank tops,cardigans,with the odd moustache,then think that this wouldn't have looked out of place on the cover of a Laibach album in the 90's. 

"The Graveyard and the Ballroom" contains 14 tracks: 7 demo songs from a session recorded at Graveyard Studios in September 1979 (side A) and 7 songs from a gig at the Electric Ballroom in October 1979 (side B), together with Joy Division* and The Distractions.

This album captures ACR at their best, still raw (as in BH...before Hannett),Dark and not too funky.

[*NB....Just so happens that I have a bootleg of the Joy Division set from that night as well.....which you can download by clicking HERE!]

Tracklist:

The Graveyard
A1 Do The Du (Casse)
A2 Faceless
A3 Crippled Child
A4 Choir
A5 Flight
A6 I Feel
A7 Strain

The Ballroom
B1 All Night Party
B2 Oceans
B3 The Choir
B4 The Fox
B5 Suspect
B6 Flight
B7 Genotype/Phenotype

DOWNLOAD from beyond the graveyard HERE!

Kevin Hewick - "The Early Factory and Cherry Red Recordings" (1980 - 1983)

Kevin Hewick and the Sound - "This Cover Keeps reality Unreal" (Cherry Red 12CHERRY 76) 1983

Kevin Hewick, Side 2 of "A Factory Quartet" 1980

"Kevin On Stage" from "A Factory Quartet" insert

"A Factory Quartet" (Factory Records FACT24) 1980

"Ophelia's Drinking Song" (7" Factory Records FAC48) 1982

 I really admire anyone who carry's on regardless of a disinterested public, ploughing on through waves of  indifference for decades,yet still there. In Kevin's case, still very much there, as an integral part of Leicester's music scene.Probably more active today than he ever was.
It didn't surprise me to learn of his contribution to the recent Patrik Fitzgerald tribute album; an artist very similar to our Kevin, in refusing to go away.
His sound is sort of a doomy outsider-ish folky post punk, which sounds quite an attractive genre to me.
This explains why he fell in with Post-punk misery merchants The Sound for one 12" ep on Cherry Red; and perhaps his most accessible work.
Collected here,for the uninitiated, is a compilation of his early singles and ep's, along with his contribution to the "A Factory Quartet" album, which showcases Hewick's early live performance,and some of the negativity any performer like him got when the audience realised that he had no amp's or drums.
Also, we have his first recordings for Factory, with the as yet un-named New Order, singing in place of the recently departed Ian Curtis.

Some unimaginative splurge about Kevin's loooooong career, lifted from Wikipedia:
 
In the early 80's his work was released by Factory Records. In 1982 he left Factory for a period on Cherry Red Records. Amongst others he recorded a collaboration with The Sound. After 1984 things got quiet around Hewick, which he calls his "black hole period". In the late 90's he emerged again on the music scene.On February 14, 2009 www.kevinhewick.co.uk released a free download album Doomcloud the until-then lost follow up to Helpline, 12 songs recorded in 2000, 2001 and 2003.

The Factory years

Newly added to the Factory roster Hewick had a recording session in June 1980 with producer Martin Hannett in Graveyard Studios where he recorded two tracks "Haystack" (released on From Brussels with Love compilation in 1981) and "A Piece of Fate" with the three surviving members of Joy Division, a month after the death of Ian Curtis and just prior to their adopting the name New Order.[1]

Other Factory releases included the controversial live side of the A Factory Quartet double album (FACT 24) in 1981 - live tracks picked against Hewick's wishes by Tony Wilson of a confrontation between him and a very aggressive audience - and the single "Ophelia's Drinking Song" (FAC 48) which featured producer Donald Johnson of A Certain Ratio on percussion and was mixed by Peter Hook of New Order.[citation needed]

For a time Hewick was privy to many pivotal moments in Factory's early history, describing himself as a "gormless bystander" to those events.[citation needed] He often stayed at the Palatine Road flat of Alan Erasmus but as Erasmus became less involved with the label and Hewick's fraught working relationship with Tony Wilson rapidly worsened throughout 1982 (with Hewick even telling Wilson that The Haçienda was a bad idea as he "couldn't even run a record company properly never mind a club as well") an offer to "jump ship" to Cherry Red Records in London proved too tempting to resist.

Tracklisting:

 Factory single 1982:
Ophelia's drinking song-Katy clown
He holds you tighter

Single 1983 (Cherry Red CHERRY64):
Feathering the nest

Kevin Hewick and New Order, 1980:
Haystack (with New Order)

Kevin Hewick and the Sound - "This Cover Keeps reality Unreal" 1983:
Plenty
Neath Dancing Waves
Amber
Scapegoat In A Country Churchyard

"A Factory Quartet" (Factory Records FACT24) 1980:
Rubble/1940/A Little Feeling/Forget/Morphia/The Enchanted Kiss/Haystack

DOWNLOAD some early kevin hewick HERE!