Nik Colk Void: Dark Matters

One of the first bands signed to Factory, A Certain Ratio helped to define the label’s distinctive look and sound, from their Peter Saville-designed record sleeves to their individualistic output. 

Hard as it is to fathom, the gold lamé and grand orchestral pop of Sheffield’s ABC developed out of post-punk experimentalist outfit Vice Versa. What were they putting in the water up there in South Yorkshire?

Female-fronted synthpop that would have ridden roughshod over the charts in the good old days. Hands up who wants to hear Sheffield’s International Teachers Of Pop?

Tristram Cary, avant-garde exponent of all things EMS

Erasure with rave licks? Orbital with pop flecks? it’s an unlikely collaboration on the face of it, but these two electronic music behemoths have served up a proper treat in the form of Vince Clarke and Paul Hartnoll’s ‘2Square’. We pop round to Vince’s Brooklyn studio to discover more, while Paul joins in the conversation on Skype