Section 25’s Always Now is a post-punk, psychedelic masterpiece. Martin Hannet did one of his best jobs producing this album and putting various effects on the bass and Factory’s in-house designer Peter Saville made his most beautiful record cover. The music on it was very much misunderstood at the time of its release and written off as a Joy Division clone. But either that was bad journalism or else the music press must have been deaf. ‘Dirty Disco’ sounds very much like Metal Box-era PiL and is the poppiest of the tracks on the album. With its tibetan bells intro and monotonous bass and drums, ‘Babies In The Bardo’ is a wonderful, dark trip. ‘Loose Talk’ and ‘Be Brave’ are classic cold wave cuts, as is the closing ‘New Horizons’. The CD-version adds compilation tracks and early singles, which aren’t that good as the original album tracks, but are really hard to find. And label manager James Nice’s extensive liner notes make the CD a perfect introduction to this criminally ignored band. —pygmydanny
