A Certain Ratio Share New Track 'Keep It Real' From New Album 'It All Comes Down To This'

A Certain Ratio (Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson) have shared a new track from their forthcoming Dan Carey-produced album, and announced new dates for their extensive UK tour, launching next month. It All Comes Down to This, their thirteenth studio album, will be released via Mute on April 19, 2024.

Listen to the urgent, muscular, foreboding groove of “Keep It Real”, with its chorus name-checking classic dance, funk and electronic bangers.

Talking about the track, Kerr explains, “The line ‘the freedom ride' is a reference to the Freedom Riders, civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961.” Johnson goes on to say: “The working title for the song was originally Funky Hendrix. Work that one out for yourself”. A Certain Ratio, as always, find a way to segue between the political and the groove seamlessly.

Pre-order the album HERE.

The new album, due out almost exactly a year after their acclaimed release, 1982, is further evidence of the mentality that defines A Certain Ratio: one that has always set them apart from their peers, a dogged, relentless demand to evolve, reassess and reinvent with every new release. After the confident, sprawling, pan-genre strut of 1982 and a tour that celebrated 45 years of ACR performing live, this new record comes from completely out of leftfield.

The record's ten tracks present ten distinct moods, every bursting moment of it, defiantly and resiliently alive. It All Comes Down to This is the sound of the current incarnation of A Certain Ratio. It proves the purest distillation of their essential sound ever committed to tape, and the first time they have recorded as just the core trio of principle band members, multi-instrumentalists Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson. 

The other essential difference between It All Comes Down to This and its immediate predecessors is the recording process. After already working together on a remix for Loco Remezclada (2021), the band turned to the doyen of contemporary underground rock producers, Dan Carey (Black Midi, Kae Tempest, Black Country, New Road) to work on the album. Known for his rejection of sonic clutter and his uncompromising focus on the central tenets of the bands and artists he produces, Carey's instincts are closely aligned with ACR's desire to return to the basics.

By honing in on the band's essential building blocks, Carey has teased out a brittle, inner darkness that has always been latent in ACR, but not always at the surface. If there is a residual darkness in the album's sonic aesthetic, then it pervades the subject matter, too. 

“We wrote the album while the world was in turmoil,” explains Moscrop. “Which it still is. If you think about climate change, corporate war, the environment, Trump in power, Johnson, the Ukraine war, Israel and Palestine, it really does all come down to this. It's probably the most political album we've written.” 

Three new extra special dates have been added to the tour. On April 20th Manchester's Piccadilly will host an album launch party at Soup, where the band will perform the album in its entirety before answering questions. On April 21st they will be performing and signing albums at Rough Trade Nottingham. On Friday, August 2nd, their performance at Kendal Calling on Tim Burgess' Tim Peaks stage will be recorded, pressed to vinyl and available at a signing event on Sunday, August 4th.

ACR's good friend and collaborator, Ellen Beth Abdi, a name familiar to anyone that has seen the band's incendiary live performances in recent years, will be joining the tour as a very special guest. Ellen, who featured on the band's last album & tour, is now concentrating on her solo career. This will be a brilliant chance to catch what ACR's Martin Moscrop describes, in reference to Ellen, as “some of the most original and inspiring music coming out of Manchester at the moment.” Full dates are listed below. 

It All Comes Down to This is out on Mute on vinyl, CD, and digitally on April 19, 2024: https://mute.ffm.to/acr-iacdtt.

A CERTAIN RATIO 2024 TOUR DATES:

4/26/2024 - Huddersfield, UK - The Parish
4/26/2024 - Leeds, UK -  Brudenell
4/27/2024 - Blackpool, UK -  Bootleg Social
4/28/2024 - Edinburgh, UK -  Summerhall
4/29/2024 - Aberdeen, UK - The Tunnels
5/1/2024 - Norwich, UK - Arts Centre
5/2/2024 - London, UK - Fabric 
5/3/2024 - Bedford, UK -  Esquires  
5/4/2024 - Portsmouth, UK - Wedgewood Rooms
5/5/2024 - Brighton, UK - Concorde 2
5/9/2024 - Birmingham, UK - Castle & Falcon 
5/10/2024 - Hull, UK - Social 
5/11/2024 - Sheffield, UK - Foundry
5/12/2024 - Bristol, UK - Exchange
5/17/2024 - Manchester, UK - New Century Hall
8/2/2024 - 8/4/2024 - Kendal Calling Festival - Tim Peaks Diner

Photo credit: Debbie Ellis

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