The Battle Of Twisted Heel

Martin Bramah is a modest man, despite being one of the best and most consistent songwriters to emerge from the UK’s fervent post-punk scene. The original singer - that’s right, singer! - for The Fall, before it was discovered that Mark E. Smith could not actually play guitar, Martin wrote most of the original music for the first several Fall records - Rebellious Jukebox, Various Times, It’s The New Thing, Repetition, No Xmas For John Quays - and was the last of the original members to leave (except for Mark.) Later he formed Blue Orchids, who released records for labels like Rough Trade, LTM and Cherry Red. During a lull in Blue Orchids activity in 2006, Martin decided to record a solo album for his own amusement, which he then made around two dozen copies of, making it among the rarest of all The Fall / Blue Orchids-oriented releases, and surprisingly, one of the best! With the exception of an overdub or two, Martin sings and plays all the instruments on the album. Nearly every song’s a winner, from the opening put-down of Fall main man Mark E Smith, The Fall Of Great Britain to the closing Necessity. Not quite rock, not quite folk, the album’s simplicity and directness took on odd forms . . . when Martin formed Factory Star, initially with Steve and Paul Hanley (long-serving members of The Fall), the band went on to re-record many of these compositions in more rockin’ fashion. Jonny Langford of The Mekons / Waco Brothers and general good guy fame was taken enough with them that he ended up collaborating on a few songs with Martin (soon to be issued) while playing together Europe and having Martin open for the Three Johns reunion in 2015. Few people were lucky enough to hear the original release, which we’ve now restored, remastered and improved for its first ‘real’ release. Both the vinyl and compact disc versions are limited edition releases, and the vinyl comes with a download card.