VIA PRESS RELEASE | A Certain Ratio today share “Waiting on a Train,” the first track to be taken from their forthcoming studio album, 1982, scheduled for release on March 31 via Mute.
A Certain Ratio’s greatest strength has always been their unpredictability. “That’s what people like about us, they don’t know what’s coming next!” explains Jez Kerr. This new track ushers that in via the slick and charismatic presence of Mancunian rapper Chunky. Chunky trades bars with the vocals of one of Manchester’s fastest-rising neo-soul musicians Ellen Beth Abdi, who you’ll recognize from the ACR live lineup in recent years. The result is a track unlike anything the band have made to date.
Watch the video for “Waiting on a Train”—directed by Rollcam Directors, produced by Joe Vickers with Jan Koblanski as director of photography above. Pre-order 1982 on limited edition smoke grey vinyl, orange vinyl, CD, cassette, and digital platforms here.
“Waiting on a Train” began life as a lo-fi hip hop jam in the studio. It made perfect sense to bring in both Chunky and Ellen—already good friends outside of A Certain Ratio. “It worked really well, there’s great chemistry between them,” Martin Moscrop continues. “It’s got the right amount of pop, the right amount of surrealism, the right amount of moodiness. It just works.”
Since they emerged from the hallowed grounds of the late ‘70s punk scene, A Certain Ratio have moved with gleeful disregard for boundaries of style and genre, their eye fixed firmly on constant progression. It’s an ethos that’s open-minded over all else, and that’s seen them take everything from experimental electronica to vintage funk, filtered through their own Mancunian lens.
Even by the band’s own standards, however, their latest studio album 1982 is multidimensional. It shoots off in every direction, whether via searing Afrobeat, mind-melting jazz breakdowns, or moody electronic experiments. 1982 was recorded by the core ACR lineup of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop, and Donald Johnson alongside Tony Quigley, Matthew Steele, and Ellen Beth Abdi soon after their 2021 triptych of EPs and 2020’s ACR Loco. The band’s pleasure at being together in the studio is audible with this new record following a series of dates that have seen them perform at a huge variety of festivals in recent years including Womad, Wide Awake, Blue Dot, Green Man, Latitude, and the Manchester Warehouse Project.
And the album title? Although 1982 might conjure memories of the year that saw ACR put out both the acclaimed Sextet and the cult favourite I’d Like To See You Again, it’s more of a playful red herring than an invitation to nostalgia. Like all of the band’s best ideas, it emerged spontaneously in the studio when Martin was ad-libbing into a vocoder. “It’s called 1982 but I wouldn’t say this album sounds anything like Sextet,” he points out. Adds Donald: “The title is just playful. People can take it whichever way they can.” Looking backwards and forwards all at once, drawing on influences from across every spectrum, 1982 is a record that will reward a dedicated listener dozens of times over.
To celebrate the release of the album, A Certain Ratio will be hosting a number of special Q&A and signing events in partnership with independent record shops in Manchester, Nottingham and London.
