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Factory Benelux \ Crispy Ambulance \ The Plateau Phase [FBN 12 CD]

Factory Benelux presents a new CD edition of The Plateau Phase, the debut album by Manchester postpunk group Crispy Ambulance, originally issued in March 1982. Recorded at Strawberry 2 with producer Chris Nagle, this acclaimed album captures a group at the peak of their creative powers. Bonus tracks include extended 12" single The Presence and Concorde Square, produced by Martin Hannett, and farewell single Sexus.

Tracklist:

1. Are You Ready?
2. Travel Time
3. The Force and the Wisdom
4. The Wind Season
5. Death From Above
6. We Move Through the Plateau Phase
7. Bardo Plane
8. Chill
9. Federation
10. Simon's Ghost
11. The Presence
12. Concorde Square
13. Sexus

Factory Benelux edition features enhanced original artwork by renowned Belgian typographer Lucien De Roeck (1915-2002), and live photography. Mailorder copies are delivered in a special FBN slipcase.

The Plateau Phase [FBN 12 CD]

Reviews:

"One of the best albums Britain's second city has unleashed" (Q Magazine, 03/2006)

"Seventeen years on The Plateau Phase sounds like what it probably always was: urgent, postmodernist psychedelia with less debt to Joy Division's music than to the universal abstract existential tension that comes with being young" (Uncut, 12/1999)

"An enthralling glimpse at a moment in musical history when the DIY ethos of punk gradually gave way to experiments with electronics and song structures" (NME, 01/2000)

"Mixes driving rock, gritty new wave and odd atmospheric stuff" (Option, 1990)

"Cold and ferocious, but with enough inventive melody to lighten the black abyss of the overall mood" (Les Inrockuptibles, 02/2012)

"The album's strength lies in its varied songwriting approach and diversion away from standard verse-chorus composition (Flipside, 03/2013)

"Phasers on stun!" (Sounds, 05/1982)

"The Plateau Phase may not be an outright masterpiece but it comes awfully close" (All Music Guide)

"Thrillingly discordant and abstract, much of this requires slotting into the post-punk canon" (The Arts Desk, 02/2013)

"A wonderful album with a compelling gravitational pull" (Record Collector, 03/2013)

"Hidden within what now seems an unbalanced overview of the 80s lay an important moment when lo-fi electronic and post punk outfits finally started to find their true musicality. Such was the case with Crispy Ambulance, which is why this Benelux reissue of that first album now sounds fresher and more ironically vibrant than it ever did first time around" (The Quietus, 04/2013)