A Certain Ratio are a curious old band. Originally a drummerless quartet in 1979 they played driving, grinding rhythmic noise with ominous vocals and grimly gothic lyrics, prompting an overjoyed Tony Wilson, who thought he’d found the his very own Velvet Underground, to make them one of the first signings to Factory Records. Their debut 7″ is still extraordinary – no drums – the rhythm is all in the guitars – listen to this:

They eventually found a drummer, and to his dismay Wilson found he’d actually signed a restless, rather prickly group of impulsive music obsessives who couldn’t decide if they wanted to be Weather Report, Funkadelic, Wire or a New York disco outfit so decided to be all those things at once. They became (in his words) “a complete pain in the arse”. They’re now approaching their 50th year having gone through line-up changes and stylistic shifts that make Fleetwood Mac look like Status Quo – but the core trio of Kerr, Moscrop and Johnson are still in situ and they appear to on a late-era hot streak with Mute Records curating their back catalogue, new records and now a regular touring fixture coming to your town soon.

Here they have paused new music and dipped into the back catalogue again with two ‘companion records’ that celebrate acknowledged classics from the Factory Records era; 1982’s ‘Sextet’ and, from 4 years later, ‘Force’. These new records are perhaps what might have been bonus discs with expensive super-deluxe edition box sets – but given they have already re-released these albums in multiple different variants (including bizarre ‘monochrome’ sleeve editions) they’ve taken the wise decision to just release these as stand-alone curiosities rather than get fans to re-buy the same albums they probably already own at least one copy of. Hats off for that.

‘Sextet’ is a really bloody weird record. One of the best albums Factory Records ever released, in a beautiful textured sleeve by Hacienda designer Ben Kelly – it was an exotic blend of Latin rhythms, funk, jazz and New York loft party tunes all filtered through the minds of some ‘chemically refreshed’ scallywags still learning how to stay in tune and in time (apart from their powerhouse drummer Donald). Add to that – Wire/Brian Eno inspired noise and proto-sampling using a tape deck -including a snippet of Bet Lynch on Coronation Street “Us barmaids have got homes to go to an’ all y’know”. It’s a heady brew and, that old cliche, a band reaching for something they don’t know how to do and creating something new in the process.

‘Sextet’ was quite hard to come by for years after release and was never issued on CD until Creation Records picked it up in the early 90s. Its cult appeal has grown over the years and many regard it as ACR’s finest work. ‘The Joy of Sextet’ is effectively a complete remix of the original album – albeit missing three tracks so clearly this isn’t a Giles Martin/Steven Wilson job staying doggedly faithful to the original. Remixer Andrew Meecham aka Emperor Machine varies in the amount of liberties he takes with the original. The original master tapes have been used so what we get to hear perhaps is a bit like one of those ‘Classic Albums’ TV series where someone sits at a mixing desk and dips faders up and down – homing in on specific things you may not have heard in the original. We get to hear the interplay of Simon Topping and Martha Tilsons vocals in a lot more clarity, an instrumental part gets a bit more highlight here and there (the slap bass on ‘Day One’ is particularly slappy), a bit of extra reverb or delay, often paring back some of the busyness of the original mix. At times, particularly on ‘Waterline’ (a favourite of the late Andrew Weatherall) it is more of fully dubbed up remix – radically altered and rejigged but as far as I can hear everything is taken from the original tapes.

Taken as a whole, ‘The Joy of Sextet’ is flawed in that it reigns in the experimental wildness of the original album – albeit you end up with some versions which could probably work well in a contemporary club DJ set which are based entirely on what the band played and recorded at the time. ‘Tumba Rumba’ (a b-side not on the album) is reworked and shown up as the “banger” that probably should have made the LP after all. ‘Below the Canal’ however, an absolute highlight of the original album gains nothing from Meecham’s reimagining -slap bass and percussion brought to the fore nicely enough but he dials down all of the mystery and wonder and atmospherics- we’re skimming over the fully cleaned up and dredged canal here. For the real deal, hear the original and swim around among the murk, the shopping trolleys and the weird life-forms that ACR imagined below the canal in 1982 .

At best, ‘The Joy of Sextet’ shines a light into the dustier corners of whatever it was the band were trying to do in Cheadle 45 years ago. You will immediately want to go and play the original record and hear how extraordinary it really was – which may well be the point.

‘Force Majeure’ is an open goal Midge Ure missed when naming his autobiography, and it is also the title of the second companion disc which fans can now file alongside the ACR album ‘Force’. This time, rather than a remake, we get to hear a set of 4 track demos for the original album discovered by the producer, the late Stuart ‘Jammer’ James. The ‘Force’ album was a real change of approach for ACR at the time. They had added more “proper” musicians with Tony Quigley on Sax and keyboard player Andy Connell on board – who went on to be a chartbound hitmaker with Swing Out Sister. The resulting album was a dramatic change from the eccentric, balmy Manc funk of ‘I’d Like to See You Again’ into more suited & booted sophisto-pop territory. It was a collection of proper songs with verse, chorus, middle eights.

Although it became a firm fan favourite, Force didn’t trouble the charts, much to ACR’s chagrin, who parted company with Factory for not giving the record enough of a promo push. They’d end up on A&M Records who had no more idea what to do with them than Factory did, but had a bigger budget. ACR found themselves at the dawn of ‘Madchester’ with a very smooth, slick soul dance record on a major label while bands like Happy Mondays (who they directly inspired) suddenly soared ahead of them. That’s another story.

The sleeve notes find them recalling a gruelling, Spinal Tap style tour promoting an album which wasn’t available for anyone to actually buy due to Factory experimenting with new packaging materials or whatever. ‘Force’ really should have been a hit – it’s a fine, elegant record of jazz tinged pop, with strings and brass – perfect for 1986 – with enough Mancunian drizzle to give it a somewhat melancholy bedsit vibe – a touch of Everything But the Girl, Danny Wilson, China Crisis even Blue Nile – albeit with an undertow of the percussive funk that remains the groups bedrock. It sounds like a completely different band to the one that recorded ‘Sextet’ just 4 years earlier:

The demo versions are remarkably similar to the album suggesting the band really did have these tunes fully worked out before they went into the studio sessions. In that sense, what you get is more lo-fi (but very listenable and lively) versions of the album itself. You also get the title track that never was ‘Force’ (itself a strange reworking of ‘Forced Laugh’ from their 1980 debut album). You also get a substantial out-take in the form of b-side ‘The Runner’ and a classic ACR percussion workout ‘Nostromo A Go Go’ – all were properly recorded for the actual album sessions too (and available elsewhere) but not in these early versions. This then is a quirky addition to their catalogue, but functions best perhaps as a sort of live session version of the album proper and a reminder of the mission ACR were on at the time. Civilians would be better off listening to the actual album and this is strictly for ACR nerds (they exist!) – but those nerds will find themselves perhaps hearing the proper ‘Force’ album in a new light and will definitely want to add this to their collection.