Always Now: Deluxe Colour Vinyl 5LP Box Set Section 25

Please note the image is a digital mock-up and is subject to change.

5 LP Set on Black / Clear / Yellow / Red / Silver Vinyl.

Factory Benelux is proud to present a deluxe 5 disc vinyl box set edition of Always Now, the debut album by cult Factory Records group Section 25, produced by legendary sonic architect Martin Hannett and sleeved by Peter Saville. Recorded as a trio at Pink Floyd’s Britannia Row studio in London in January 1981, Always Now combined austere post-punk rhythm and noise with elements of Can, Krautrock and modern psychedelia. Key tracks include Friendly Fires, Dirty Disco and New Horizon, along with C.P. (a collaboration with Hannett) and Hit (extensively sampled by Kanye West for the track F.M.L. on his 2016 album The Life of Pablo).

Disc 2 gathers together several non-album singles from 1980 and 1981, including Charnel Ground, Je Veux Ton Amour and debut EP Girls Don’t Count – the latter produced by mentors Rob Gretton and Ian Curtis (of Joy Division).

Disc 3 offers a complete live show professionally recorded at Groningen (Netherlands) on 26 October 1980, as part of a Factory package tour.

Disc 4 is part-improvised second studio album The Key of Dreams, recorded and produced by the band themselves a few months after Always Now, and released by Factory Benelux in June 1982.

Disc 5 consists of further experimental material recorded in 1981 and self-released on a cassette called Illuminus Illumina. This final disc closes with an extended (and previously unreleased) live encore jam recorded with all four members of New Order at Reading University on 8 May 1981.

All tracks are newly re-mastered from the original quarter-inch tapes. The first 1000 copies of the box set are pressed in coloured vinyl: disc 1 (black); disc 2 (clear); disc 3 (yellow); disc 4 (red); disc 5 (silver). The outer case in printed in PMS 123 with spot varnish. The 16 page booklet features unseen images by noted photographer Philippe Carly and texts by founder members Larry and Vin Cassidy. Also included is the first ever interview with guitarist Paul Wiggin, whose sudden departure in late 1981 saw Tony Wilson try (and fail) to recruit pre-Smiths teenager Johnny Marr as replacement.

Disc 1:
Side A

1. Friendly Fires
2. Dirty Disco
3. C.P.
4. Loose Talk (Costs Lives)
5. Inside Out
6. Melt Close

Side B
1. Hit
2. Babies in the Bardo
3. Be Brave
4. New Horizon

Disc 2:
Side A
1. Knew Noise
2. Up To You
3. Girls Don’t Count
4. After Image
5. Human Puppets

Side B
1. Charnel Ground
2. Haunted
3. Je Veux Ton Amour
4. One True Path

Disc 3:
Side A
1. Loose Talk (Costs Lives) (live)
2. Human Puppets (live)
3. Knew Noise (live)
4. Friendly Fires (live)
5. Girls Don’t Count (live)

Side B
1. New Horizon (live)
2. Haunted (live)
3. You’re On Your Own (live)
4. One Step Backward (live)

Disc 4:
Side A
1. Always Now
2. Visitation
3. Regions
4. The Wheel
5. No Abiding Place
6. Once Before

Side B
1. There Was a Time
2. Wretch
3. Sutra

Disc 5:
Side A
1. Fallen Monument
2. Are You There?
3. Virtually Everything
4. Tape Loop
5. Subferior
6. In the Garden of Eden
7. Cry

Side B
1. Red Voice
2. Floating
3. Reading Uni Jam with New Order 1981