Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Ian Penman - A Certain Ratio: 'To Each... ' (NME, spring 1981)









 






 




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6 comments:

  1. Edmund UndeadAugust 30, 2023 at 1:17 PM

    I wonder what I.P. made of the (I think) altogether more fabulous 'Sextet' - ?

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    1. SIMON REYNOLDSAugust 30, 2023 at 1:50 PM

      No idea - I imagine he might have just given up on them after To Each. I almost did but then there was some good singles, including "Knife Slits Water", which I bought. I can't remember if I ever heard Sextet at the time, though. Money was tight... I am of the opinion that Graveyard and the Ballroom, which I have in the little green plastic pouch with the gold letters, the mail-order cassette, is pretty much the definitive ACR recording. That and "Flight" - but then are two versions of "Flight" on Graveyard/Ballroom...

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    2. Edmund UndeadAugust 31, 2023 at 1:53 AM

      People found their funk in funny places in 1981. What about a nice early Level 42 record, or something by Incognito or Paz? But that would breach the tribal rules of the day. One of the interesting things about your Rip It Up thesis - i.e. that the post-punk creators of the day had their ears to the ground to pick up cross-cultural currents emanating from funk, reggae etc - is that this didn't particularly translate to encourage wider listening among consumers. Listening to funk, reggae, soul etc would typically continue to be via approved proxies (e.g. ACR, Scritti). But as you mention above, funds were a problem for many, and would inhibit wide purchasing. Also, distribution of and exposure to Black sounds at the time made John Peel look positively mainstream . . .

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    3. SIMON REYNOLDSAugust 31, 2023 at 11:05 AM

      Well, Level 42 won in the end insofar as ACR got better at playing and eventually sounded more or less like Level 42!

      Seem to remember Level 42 had supporters in the music press - Morley wrote a big piece, called them a "pop ECM" which is a bit generous

      Most Britfunk was a bit insipid, compared to the stuff coming out of America. So there's that. I think a lot of people progressed from postpunkfunk listening to buying disco and funk - I certainly did. But yeah Beggar & Co etc sounded a bit weak on a production level. Probably the best British soulfunk group of that time was Imagination, they had great sounding records. And Freez did the wondrous "Southern Freez".

      Linx, though - they got a huge amount of favorable press from inkie music papers. A little overblown, in retrospect.

      There's a record from 1979 that in places sounds eerily like ACR - Neil Ardley's Harmony of the Spheres. Particularly the drumming and the bass. But he's a serious British jazz musician, who then veered in a jazz-rock-funk direction. But nothing to do with the jazz funk, all-dayer scene etc

      But yeah the jazz-funk scene and vibe would have been rather remote from the world of ACR, Skidoo and Cabs fans, that's for sure.

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  2. David GunnipAugust 30, 2023 at 1:40 PM

    Who reviewed 'Slates' on the same page?

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