Originally released in 1982 on Factory Records, A Certain Ratio’s second proper album transforms funk and dub into alien and oddly emotionless forms of expression-and that’s ultimately what makes ACR so interesting. Sextet sounds utterly distinctive due to Martha Tilson’s voice and Jeremy Kerr’s bass. Tilson’s voice is flat and pallid, yet spectral, like a novocained Exene Cervenka, while Kerr’s bass is flanged, bubbling, elastically loop-da-looping, always gracefully guiding ACR’s so-loose-they’re-tight tracks along with Donald Johnson’s athletic percussion. Despite the plethora of excellent avant-funk bands now, nobody’s really advanced this mutant genre with ACR’s uniquely chilly strangeness.