The captains of industry: Factory Records remembered

THIRTY years ago, being ‘industrial’ was everything, of course. Ironically, at the same time as factories everywhere throughout the UK were closing their doors, an idealised folk memory of the dignity of labour and the mournful parabolic arc of the factory hooter seemed to swell and resound throughout a generation’s bones.

You could devote an entire thesis to the subject. Did drum machines come along to fill a mechanistic void within us when factory floors fell silent? Did the boiler suit briefly become a fashion item because people felt it legitimised them somehow?

In retrospect, the formation of Manchester’s Factory Records seems like an inevitable consequence of the time, as clubs sprang up in the dead spaces vacated by industry and bands lined up to be photographed in stark monochrome among weed-choked tramlines and within gaunt, roofless brick shells.

The brainchild of Granada TV presenter Tony Wilson and unemployed actor/band manager Alan Erasmus, Factory began life as a club then in short order became a label with a notably lucid grasp of branding, iconography and artwork (courtesy of maverick designer Peter Saville). Its days were inherently numbered straight from the get-go because of a profligate, wanton and utterly impractical mindset which now seems strangely noble. The most notorious example of this cavalier disregard for number crunching has to be the die-cut ‘floppy disk’ sleeve for the original release of Blue Monday by New Order, which lost money hand over fist for the label because it was so expensive to produce.

Indeed, it’s tempting to suggest that Factory’s lofty and careless idealism is its enduring legacy, rather than the bulk of the music the label released during its lifespan. Rhino’s Factory Box Set – due for release in January 2009 – is a rough old listen in the main unless, as many admittedly are, you’re a big fan of the aforementioned New Order, Happy Mondays, Electronic and bantamweights A Certain Ratio, Section 25 and Crispy Ambulance. For me, it’s really only the Joy Division and Durutti Column stuff which lasts the course. Joy Division’s austere, flailing presence still conveys a monolithic power while the glassy soundscapes of Vini Reilly’s Durutti Column are solemn and timeless. Factory aficionados will, however, be made up. Aptly, a great deal of hard work has gone into it.

Elsewhere in the pile today, I was charmed and discomfited in equal measure by Oslo’s Je Suis Animal – equal parts Talulah Gosh, Stereolab and The Marine Girls. Like a chilly childhood refracted through the frail textures of Pillows and Prayers, their music casts a shadow which lingers in the subconsciousness for keeps. Catch them at their most effective on the startling Luis Bunuel/Salvador Dali-referencing video for The Mystery Of Marie Roget at www.jesuisanimal.com

Finally, A Love Extreme, the debut album by North Carolina native Benji Hughes, is a sprawling 25-song beastie which, a la Stephen Merritt, ends up being an extended discourse on the nature of that elusive thing called lurve. It’s not for me, I’m afraid, but I admire the breadth of the whole undertaking. Evidently something of a ladies’ man, Benji favours a close-miked approach which picks up all manner of lubricious breathing, lip smacking and guttural groaning. If I was a lady he’d get a smack in the beard but real ladies may well go a bundle on his schtick, and in songs like Tight Tee Shirt, Vibe So Hot and Ladies On Parade there’s every evidence to suggest that Benji has his finger on the zeitgeist – although one wouldn’t like to speculate where his other fingers are headed.