A Certain Ratio’s greatest strength has always been their unpredictability. They’ve always moved with gleeful disregard for the boundaries of style and genre, their eye fixed firmly on constant progression. It’s an ethos that’s open-minded over all else, and that’s seen them take everything from experimental electronica to vintage funk, filtered through their own Mancunian lens.
And their latest studio album 1982 is no different in its unpredictable multidimensional nature. It shoots off in every direction, whether via searing Afrobeat, mind- melting jazz breakdowns or moody electronic experiments all with pop hooks and irresistible dance rhythms.
It might be called 1982, but it’s no nostalgia trip, fearlessly facing up to the future and running at it with full speed.
The album follows ACR Loco and EP:ACR in what is turning out to be the band’s most creative period, unmistakably ACR and unmistakably like nothing else.
A Certain Ratio - 1982
A1. Samo
A2. Waiting on a Train
A3. 1982
A4. A Trip in Hulme
B1. Constant Curve
B2. Afro Dizzy
B3. Holy Smoke
B4. Tier 3
B5. Ballad of ACR
B6. Constant Curve