Here ends another year of musical wonders and my Top 50 albums. A strange year, mixing some deeply psychedelic, earthy and folky music, (see PJ Harvey, Lankum, Moundabout, Goat, Johnny Flynn, The Coral) alongside some downright dance floor classics (see The Orb, Everything But The Girl, HiFi Sean). With Iraina Mancini managing to fill the dance floor with soul and psychedelia.
This year’s chart is topped by A Certain Ratio – their album 1982 found its place in my ears on release and never left the turntable. Cemented by an amazing gig in Manchester in December – celebrating 45 years – playing from their first single on Factory right up to the new album. ACR are still ‘the’ Manchester cult band, 45 years into their career. Their status, always slightly under the radar, but always unique, with an ear to the contemporary, gives them freedom to flow where the groove takes them.
1982 is post-punk, electro-pop, funky, with a foot on the New York dance floor, latin rhythms, washes of kraftwerkian synths and afro beat drums. This heady brew has bubbled to perfection in 1982, which sounds both new and old at the same time.
Opener Samo sets us off on a magnificently funky electro pop ride, with a chorus to die for. The album’s single, Afro Dizzy, their tribute to the late Tony Allen, is based around a looped drum sample of the Afrobeat legend. They have a new soul voice in the mix from latest arrival Ellen Beth Ambdi, who replaced Denise Johnson, who sadly died in 2020 after 30 years with the band. Ellen’s voice striking a gorgeously slow soul groove on Afro Dizzy and Waiting On A Train, with Manchester rapper Chunky weaving in and pout on ‘Train. 1982 is a trance-mancunian-express delight, just the right side of mining their electro pop roots, looking back through the Manchester rain. Ballad of ACR closes off, telling the tale of where they’ve been and where they came back to, some post punk guitar, segueing into jazz and back again. A musical journey from Manchester to New York and back, with friends lost along the way. The jazz fades us out and the album is done.
They also throw in an effortlessly cool artwork to boot. While Manchester endlessly plays New Order’s Blue Monday as its soundtrack to the recent Chanel Catwalk event in the Northern Quarter, ACR’s groove still remains just below the radar of any Mancunian greatest hits, meaning they sound this fresh 45 years on.
1. A Certain Ratio – 1982
2. PJ Harvey – I inside the old year dying
2. Lankum – False lankum
4. Grian Chatten – Chaos for the fly
5. Everything But The Girl – Fuse
6. Witch – Zango
7. The Coral – Sea of mirrors
8. Steven Wilson – The Harmony codex
9. Moundabout – An Cnoc Mor
10. James Holden – Imagine this is a high dimensional space of all possibilities
11. Slowdive – Everything is alive
12. The Orb – Prism
13. Young Fathers – Heavy heavy
14. Johnny Flynn and Robert Mcfarlane – The moon also rises
15. Iraina Mancini – Undo the blue
16. HiFi Sean and David McAlmont – Happy ending
17. Gaz Coombes – Turn the car around
18. Julian Cope – Modern Antiquarian 25 years
19. Blur – Ballad of Darren
20. Goat – Medicine
21. David Best – Message -Send-Failure
22. Dot Alison – Conciousology
23. David Holmes – Blind on a galloping horse
24. Sundial – Messages from the mothership
25. Third Mind – Third Mind 2
26. OXN – CYRM
27. Emma Anderson – Pearlies
28. Cat Power – plays Bob Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall
29. Firestations – Thick Terrain
30. James Redmond – Video City 2
31. Holy Wave – Five of cups
32. Say She She – Silver
33. Creation Rebel – Hostile environment
34. Beatowls – Marma
35. Corrine Bailey Rae – Black Rainbows
36. Chemical Brothers – For that beautiful feeling
37. All-Lahs – Zuma 85
38. OMD – Bauhaus Staircase
39. Beach Fossils – Bunny
40. Roisin Murphy – Hit Parade
41. Baxter Dury -I though I was better than you
42. Django Django – Off planet
43. BC Camplight – The last rotation of earth
44. Order of the 12 – Lore of the land
45. Lisa ONeill – All of this is chance
46. Black Pumas – Chronicles of a diamond
47. Tinawarin – Amatssou
48. Fatoumata Diawara – London Ko
49. Depeche Mode – Memento Mori
50. Peter Gabriel- I/O