A Certain Ratio

ACR:EPA – out now

FIRST IN A SERIES OF EPs RELEASED AHEAD OF FESTIVAL DATES AND TOURING THROUGHOUT 2021

“ACR unquestionably rule” – MOJO

A Certain Ratio today release their ACR:EPA on limited edition Valentine red vinyl and digitally: https://mute.ffm.to/acrepa

Featuring the singles ‘Keep It Together’ and ‘Wonderland’, the four-track EP pays tribute to Denise Johnson who unexpectedly passed away in 2020, and marks their final recordings together. The EP centres around a joyous jam session from March 2020 when the band – Denise Johnson, Tony Quigley, Matthew Steele, Jez Kerr, Donald Johnson and Martin Moscrop – gathered at Oxygene in Salford for an informal weekend of studio time, in part to celebrate completing the mix of their first new album in over a decade, ACR Loco. You can even hear the band cheering and Denise laughing at the end of ‘Down and Dirty (Jam 2), the band explain, “We wanted to keep all her laughter and our response in the track as it has such warmth and it highlights the real Denise, always laughing and smiling and full of passion.”

The sessions that followed are unmistakably ACR: the energy and chemistry of the band evokes the unbridled joy of their live performances, and the effortless fusing of genre that has become their trademark.

ACR expand, “The new EP has a spontaneous, natural and – dare we say it – jazz feel to it. We were slated in 81-82 for playing jazz funk when we couldn’t play it properly – as the Talking Heads sound engineer said on our tour with them in 1979 ‘they sound like a fire in a pet shop’. We think we’ve got the hang of it now.”

Listen to an in-depth interview about ACR when Jez Kerr and Martin Moscrop joined Gilles Peterson for a one-hour special on his BBC 6Music show: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vfqz ACR are due to appear at the Big Foot Festival in June, Womad in July, the We Out Here Festival in August and at the Wide Awake and Futurama festivals in September . Later this year the band will continue their run of unmissable dates with a winter tour – starting in Huddersfield on 3 November, with a show at London’s EartH on 13 November, finishing at Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut on 17 November. 

ACR LIVE – 2021

18 June – Big Foot Festival, Warwickshire

25 July – Womad Festival, Wiltshire

19-22 Aug – We Out Here Festival, Cambridgeshire

3 Sep – Wide Awake Festival, Brockwell Park, London

11 Sep – Futurama Festival, Liverpool

3 Nov – Huddersfield, The Parish
4 Nov – Newcastle, St. Dom’s Social Club
5 Nov – Manchester, Gorilla
6 Nov – Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, The Sugarmill
7 Nov – York, The Crescent
9 Nov – Birmingham, Hare & Hounds
10 Nov – Southampton, Engine Rooms
11 Nov – Brighton, CHALK (formerly The Haunt)
12 Nov – Bristol, The Exchange
13 Nov – London, EartH
15 Nov – Preston, The Ferrett
16 Nov – Leeds, The Warehouse
17 Nov – Glasgow, King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut