On 17th September, Strut release the second album in the ‘Fac. Dance’ series bringing together sought after 12” versions and rarities from Manchester’s revered Factory Records imprint. Despite a reputation for austere post-punk, the label’s first decade produced a slew of landmark dance records, primarily brought to the label by Rob Gretton, who valued tunes and beats over Situationist theory and laboratory experiments in popular art. Conversely, founder Tony Wilson disparaged pure dance music as lacking intellectual rigour. As a result, this second collection of early Factory dance sides occupies a compelling middle ground. Revisiting the peerless studio work of Martin Hannett, Be Music (the collective pseudonym of New Order members Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Peter Hook) and ACR drummer Donald Johnson, among others, Fac. Dance 02 fleshes out Factory’s varied early forays into dance territory, widening the spectrum yet further from Volume One. The early version of A Certain Ratio angular funk classic ‘The Fox’ from the band’s debut album ‘To Each…’ rubs shoulders with Cheba Fadela’s Algerian rai blast, ‘N’Sel Fik’; Kalima’s uplifting dancefloor jazz also features, along with a sprawling electro dub of 52nd Street’s UK boogie classic ‘Can’t Afford’; we spotlight Dutch electronic band Minny Pops with the motorik ‘Blue Roses’ alongside the heavy dub and reggae stylings of The Wake, X-O-Dus and ACR alter ego Sir Horatio; the Manchester / New York axis is also revisited once again with two potent post-punk funk blasts from E.S.G., the first US band to appear on Factory. Fac. Dance 02 is released in conjunction with Factory Records Ltd. The CD and LP packages feature detailed track notes by Factory biographer James Nice, together with rare photos. The digital version of the album features five tracks not featured on the physical formats.
http://www.strut-records.com/node/881
