NewsA Certain Ratio / ACR:BOX
Rarities box • 7LP coloured vinyl or 4CD • Many unreleased tracks
This May, A Certain Ratio will issue ACR:BOX, a new 7LP or 4CD collection that features A-sides, B-sides, alternate versions and unreleased material.
The box complements last year’s acr:set with a selection of hidden gems (12-inch versions, B-sides, edits etc.) and unreleased material. The latter includes W.S.L.U (which you can preview below) and the band’s cover version of Talking Heads‘ ‘Houses In Motion’, using Jez Kerr’s guide vocals (prior to him becoming the band’s singer). This was from a session with Grace Jones that never reached fruition.
ACR: BOX is available as a 7LP coloured vinyl set (and as a 4CD box)
Twenty-six tracks are unreleased and both vinyl and CD box sets contain all 54 tracks in this collection. The 7LP vinyl box is presented as a beautiful looking coloured vinyl package and comes with a download code.
ACR: BOX is out on 3 May 2019, via Mute.
Compare prices and pre-order
A Certain Ratio
ACR BOX - 4CD set
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Compare prices and pre-order
A Certain Ratio
ACR BOX - 7LP coloured vinyl
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ACR:BOX
Singles and B-sides
1 All Night Party
2 The Thin Boys
3 Blown Away
4 Son And Heir
5 Waterline
6 Funaezekea
7 Abracadubra
8 Sommadub
9 Guess Who? (12″
10 Tumba Rumba
11 Knife Slits Water (12″ version)
12 Kether Hot Knives (Mix In Special)
13 I Need Someone Tonight
14 Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing
15 Life’s a Scream
16 There’s Only This
17 Si Fermir O Grido (Touch Cassette Version)
18 Brazilia 6.10
19 Sounds Like Something Dirty
20 The Runner (Greetings Four Version)
21 Inside (Greetings Four Version)
22 Bootsy (Greetings Four Version)
23 Fever 103 (Greetings Four Version)
24 Loosen Up Your Mind
25 The Planet
26 Turn Me on (7″ Edit)
27 27 Forever (Jon Dasilva’s Testimonial Mix)
28 Shack up (Electronic Radio Edit)
Unreleased content
29 Houses In Motion (Demo Version 1)
30 Houses In Motion (Demo Version 2)
31 And Then Again (Another version)
32 Piu Lento (John Peel Session)
33 Nostromo A Go Go (Demo)
34 Force (Demo)
35 Backs to The Wall (Demo)
36 The Big E (Demo)
37 Every Pleasure (Demo)
38 Rivers Edge (Demo)
39 Stadium (Demo)
40 Thin Grey Line (Demo)
41 Repercussions (African Mix)
42 BTTW 90 (Demo)
43 Spirit Dance (Demo)
44 Bitter Pill (Never Released)
45 It’s Trippin When I’m Fine (Previously Unreleased)
46 Mello (JD 800 Perc Mix)
47 Tekno 4 an Answer (120bpm)
48 Samba 123 (Demo)
49 Some Day (ACR rework)
50 Happy Meal (Working Title)
51 Flight Won’t Stop (Unfinished Demo)
52 Fruit Song (Unfinished Demo)
53 Say What You Mean (Unfinished Demo)
54 W.S.L.U.
SuperDeluxeEdition.com helps fans around the world discover physical music and discuss releases. To keep the site free, SDE participates in various affiliate programs, including Amazon and earns from qualifying purchases.
Release date 3 May arrives. Amazon announce that my pre-order from March will not arrive until 10 May at earliest ~:o
‘Large South American river’ must have been listening to my previous comment – it suddenly was rescheduled and arrived yesterday. Sounds fantastic and over 4.5 hours to revel in. Catch them live – they gave a good show in Islington on 4 May with guest Barry Adamson.
[…] Two versions of Houses in Motion feature on the ‘unreleased content’ section of the new box set. It is released by Mute as a 7LP coloured vinyl box or a three-CD set on 3 May 2019. You can read more on this here. […]
This is disappointing. I was hoping for more Simon Topping-era tracks from the 79-80 era. Tony Wilson always lamented that in his roster he had a great singer who didn’t want to sing (Topping content to bash about on the bongos after their To Each album) and a great guitarist who insisted on singing (Vini Reilly, who had a weak voice).
I know that this is for people who like to hold it in their hands, but some of us dream about the hand holding but have to be content with downloads and a few of these lustable items.
Anyway, this set is on pre-order from iTunes at $16.99 (in Australia). While there is usually some download discount (Imagine is $50) this seems like a good price.
Have pre-ordered of course (as someone who owned the Brazillia 12″)
I thought I was the only ACR nerd! For me I wish each reissue came with a bonus CD/LP of additional tracks from each era. LTM did a great job a few years ago of adding selected tracks. I would like to have seen a disc of BBC Radio sessions, Remixes/Edits, Demo versions as there is still a lot of missing pieces. Saying that, this is a great box which I can’t complain about. I hope Mute do a similar campaign on early Cabaret Voltaire now (2×45 is a must for a reissue).
Even with all this, I still need to hold on to the ‘Knife Slits Water’ 7″? Do the band just really hate that track or did they just forget over it all these years? So many compilations and deluxe editions over the decades and I think it’s the one recording of theirs that has never been reissued on any of ’em. Downright puzzling, it is.
Nope, the band regularly encore with the 7″‘ version of the track (with Dojo swapping Drums to slap the Bass Guitar). The 7″ mix of Knife Slits Water was on last year’s ACR:Set compilation. It was also a bonus track on the LTM CD reissue of ‘I’d Like to See You Again’.
(Paul Sinclair…stop me if I’m getting boring!!)
That tune is on the previous compilation Set.
FYI – Knife Slits Water’ 7″ appeared on the 2018 ACR Set compilation!
There is far too much missing from this. My favourite album of theirs Good Enough is hardly represented at all apart from a few demos. There was four singles released from that album all with mixes and none of them are on this.
I don’t think ACR or Mute were aiming for completeness, looks like they’ve set some rules to save space, like only one version of each song and no duplication between ‘Box’ and ‘Set’.
I believe ACR own the rights to most of their recordings with the exception of the stuff from around ‘Good Together’ when they were signed to A&M. So they licensed the albums for reissue from whoever now owns the A&M catalogue now, but that only extends to CD and Vinyl, hence no ‘Good Together’ on Spotify or iTunes and probably why ACR have re-recorded WSLU (as its is probably a song people want to play on streaming). They’ve used their own demo recordings to represent the A&M era which is probably less hassle/expense than licensing back those mixes and b sides back…some of which can only be found on 3” CDs etc. Alas the current rights holders probably don’t know who ACR are and won’t be rushing to compile those anytime soon…
Neil, there are licensing issues with the A&M-owned tracks. The Good Together album reissue was only available in physical form and, IIRC, the A&M tracks were not on the Set download/stream. I wonder if A&M pulled up the drawbridge? A shame as the 12″ Kervorkian mixes are ace.
I don’t really understand as they must have acquired the rights to reissue Good Together from A&M but why not the extra tracks from that era. I was looking forward to hearing remastered versions of Good Together and mcr but they have just put out lazy reissues with no remastering involved.
A question for any ACR fan that might be able to help.
I liked their first couple of albums then lost track of them until someone pointed me in the direction of Force which I really like (despite not sounding much like the earlier ACR).
However I particularly like a track called Inside which I have now discovered is not on the vinyl album.
Is the track available anywhere apart from as an extra track on the CD? I notice a version of ‘Inside’ is listed on this box set but I presume it is a different version to the one released on Force the CD.
Can anyone out there confirm please?
Many thanks
The version on box set isn’t the same recording… it was released on an Italian E.P called “Greetings Four” and I think the tracks are early demo versions of songs written for ‘Force’. The version of ‘Inside’ that was added as a bonus track ‘Force’ can be found on vinyl as B Side to the 12” Version of ‘Mickey Way’ on Factory. Fairly easy to track down and not a particularly rare record so goes for less than a fiver.
@Dr Volume.
Many thanks for the response, very helpful… I will have to see if I can find a copy.
Cheers
The new version of “Won’t Stop Loving You” on this is wonderful. ACR were one of those bands that skipped me by so the recent re-issue campaign coupled with this is most welcome.
As a fellow ACR nerd I’ll be buying it, obviously, although I hope this is the first volume of Box.
There are enough previously-released-and-no-longer-available tracks/versions, not on this, that there could be another 4 or 5 CDs.
Yep could easily do another 4 or 5 discs, not to mention the BBC Radio sessions. The first ACR John Peel session is stunning. Was available on the Soul Jazz compilation ‘Early’ but that’s long deleted. Hopefully if this sells well…
Looks tasty, wasn’t expecting a mega box with everything in it but I do like a good ‘Odds and Sods’ compliation. Quite a bit of the previously released stuff hasn’t been on CD before including the ‘lost’ single Brazilia, so unless you’re an ACR nerd like me a lot of this’ll not already be in people’s collections.
Some of the B sides have been previously available as bonus tracks on LTM and Soul Jazz Records reissues but as vinyl rips (complete with a skipping stylus in one instance) so hope they’ve found the master tapes.
CD for me. Ouch! at that price difference with vinyl.
ACR has always had great sleeve design and this continues that beautifully.
I think the ACR reissue campaign has been really well handled. Their catalogue hasn’t had a mega box, but everything has been released over time in a series of nice, affordable packages. It just looks like a really well considered project and I’ll definitely be picking this up.