Nothing ever comes unpredictably out of nowhere. In popular music I enjoy seeing if you can detect traces of where a bands influences came from, and by turn see where that band also had an influence on what was to follow. For the purposes of this demonstration I've chosen a starting point of A Certain Ratio. Click on the links to hear the influences.
Essentially their origins kicked off in Post Punk, but let us not overlook musicians who preceded that. One name in particular springs to mind. In the context of A Certain Ratio's eventual musical trajectory I don't think the influence of Bowie's Blue Eyed Soul Funk period on them can be underestimated. From Young Americans 1974, and even through to the 'Berlin Trilogy of Low 1979 you can see a multiplicity of musical cross overs into A Certain Ratio's future of ethereal salsa inflected funk..
A Certain Ratio named themselves after a line from Brian Eno's 1974 album Taking Tiger By Mountain By Strategy. This album is Eno at his most playful, lyrically it is associative surreal nonsense and musically eccentric mixes of waltz and reggae rhythms, as on Back In Judy's Jungle. One track, Third Uncle was even at the time seen as something of a precursor for punk. But its the track The True Wheel where we find the line - 'Looking for a certain ratio, someone must have left it underneath the carpet'. Though starting off with a plodding Roxy Music like key board rhythm, it goes through dramatic musical transitions, Portsmouth Symphonia strings played forwards over backwards and ends on a drumming gallop that reminded me of earlier tracks by A Certain Ratio.
Eno collaborations with Bowie are well known, both were heavily influenced by The Velvet Underground. With the long grinding urban grooves like on Sister Ray, informing the direction of many a future post punk band. For it wasn't until post punk arrived that bands truly picked up the VU mantel of arty noise experimentation. The late 70's Manchester punk scene, as folk lore tells us, burst into life after the performance of The Sex Pistols at Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1976. A Certain Ratio arose out of that, forming in 1977. The Pop Group from Bristol share a similar timeline to ACR also coming together in 1977. It is in them that you can best see where ACR's arty jagged jerky guitar sound morphed from. The Pop Group, Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle all sound very much like ARC's rather more anarchic blood brother contemporaries.
Joy Division and A Certain Ratio were both signed by Tony Wilson to his fledgling record label Factory. Though ACR were first off the block in getting a single released, once Joy Divisions debut album Unknown Pleasures was out in 1979 ACR seemed increasingly to be forgotten and overshadowed by their stablemates burgeoning fame. They themselves blamed their producer Martin Hannett for making them sound like pale imitators of Ian Curtis. But the style of vocal delivery at this time does often veer into the same dour sounding territory, of urban morose.
Whilst Joy Division turned out to be the more famous of the two bands, hugely amplified by the tragic early death of Curtis. There was something about the sound world of Joy Division that was unrepeatable, nor to be borrowed from, it was all too inimitable. So it is ACR who I'd say have turned out to be the more influential of the two bands. Their official debut album To Each in 1981 appears to have had an difficult gestation period. By which time their punk origins had already matured into what could be described as hallucinogenic industrial post punk funk. The best example of which is the albums concluding twelve minute plus opus Winter Hill. This was an early signpost for what was to become Post Rock. Its a shame that ACR never followed up the experimental potential of this.
In 1979 ACR were the support act on a US tour with Talking Heads headlining. You could see why they'd be a good fit together, sharing a similar musical counter point of jerky odd unpredictability. Legend says touring with ACR is what prompted Bynre and Co to consider taking their own journey into funk, tentatively beginning on Fear of Music in 1979 and fully blossoming on Remain In Light in 1980. Interestingly House In Motion was later covered by ACR. By the time To Each finally came out in 1981 it was ACR who looked like they were following a trend, rather than being the trend setters they really were.
ACR took an increasing interest in world music rhythms, Caribbean and Brazilian in particular. And this set the scene for a short lived movement for salsa and jazz lite influenced bands in the mid 80's such as Blue Rondo A La Turk. ACR have over the decades turned themselves into a slick musically more conventional band, shedding most of the hallucinogenic industrial side of their earlier work. Yet it is to this earlier period in their career that they owe their most enduring influence. You saw it early on in the London collective 23 Skidoo and Sheffield's Chakk, then later in Test Department, and I'd say that you could at a stretch include Post Rock, with bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor in their use of found voices and the painting of vast slabs of soundscape.
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