Three for me: Underrated Manchester albums.

In our ongoing series of recommended things to do, see or hear in Manchester, Luke Bainbridge, Associate Editor of Observer Music Monthly, and ex-Editor of City Life, picks his ‘three for me’ – in this case, Manchester’s three most underrated albums

Happy Mondays – Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)
Factory Records, 1987
The critics generally opt for Bummed (1989), and the populist choice is Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches (1990), but the Mondays’ debut, produced by The Velvet Underground’s John Cale, shows them at their raw, undiluted, dangerous, inimitable best. ‘If you’ve got to be told by someone, then it’s got to be me,’ sings Shaun Ryder as his opening gambit. The baggy trousered anthropologist and his gang called themselves ‘baldricks’, and introduced both flares and ecstasy to Manchester. They looked and sounded like the last real gang in this dirty old town. ‘Everybody on this stage,’ Shaun sings on Olive Oil, ‘likes robbin’ and bashin’, big blags abroad and smokin’ mounds and mounds of hash.’ Musically, they stole from influences as wide as indie and Motown, Northern Soul and early acid house, but, crucially, they churned it out into something utterly, fantastically unique. Nearly every song is a gem – Kuff Dam, Tart Tart, Weekend 5, Little Matchstick Owen – but Olive Oil, Oasis and 24 Hour Party People in particular are stone cold classics.

The Durutti Column – The Guitar and Other Machines
Factory Records, 1987
Named after an anarchist column during the Spanish Civil War, The Durutti Column were the first band to sign to the fledgling Factory Records in 1978. Managed by Tony Wilson, they were less a band, more a fluid ongoing project based around Wythenshawe guitarist Vini Reilly and, after 1981, percussionist Bruce Mitchell. They have released 25 albums over three decades, but The Guitar and Other Machines, produced by Stephen Street, is the band’s most timeless and, possibly, most accessible work. Factory being Factory, it was also the first album to be released on Digital Audio Tape format, as well as traditional vinyl, cassette and CD. Reilly, often overlooked by the mainstream, is revered for his complex, densely constructed, multi-layered guitar structures by musicians as diverse as Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ John Frusciante and Morrissey (Reilly played on the latter’s solo debut, Viva Hate, a year after The Guitar and Other Machines). He is a master, and this is probably his masterpiece.

Verve – A Storm In Heaven
Hut, 1993
Forget the singalong choruses of the all conquering Brit-pop album, Urban Hymns, A Storm In Heaven is The Verve (actually just called Verve at this stage) at their most ambitious, free, and gloriously psychedelic. Produced by John Leckie (who produced The Stone Roses’ debut), this was when Verve were still a group, when they opted for ambitious experimental jams swathed in guitarist Nick McCabe’s deep layers of delay and reverb, before Richard Ashcroft took charge and moved them towards more structured, radio-friendly songwriting. The cover artwork is gorgeous too, by photographer Michael Spencer Jones and designer (and fellow Wiganer) Brian Cannon, who would go on to produce all the early Oasis sleeves.

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