omd's first 7" was electricity/almost. it was released by factory. the sleeve is a fascinating bit of music ephemera - an unmistakable (and somewhat failed) early peter saville experiment with black letters on a black background, limited to 5000 because the printing press caught fire three times during the process (thermography, for the techical trainspotters) and probably also because of money (most early factory releases were "limited" in that way).
tony wilson, enthusing over the demo tape, wanted factory's crowned prince of production, our own martin hannett, to produce a rerecording of electricity and almost from the demo session, so into cargo studios, rochdale, they went. omd disagreed strongly with hannett's vision of almost as a slow lament (slowed from the demo's uptempo flavour), suffused with atmospherics, echo, and the other typical hannett touches, including pronounced bass and deadened vocals. electricity also seemed wrong to omd, though this may have been
because they showed up at the session without their preferred equipment! wilson loved the cargo session and compromised, releasing the paul collister-produced version of electricity on the a-side, and the hannett-induced almost on the flip. hannett was, of course, still working under the punk moniker "martin zero" that he would drop soon afterwards.
omd, realizing the difficulties of achieving commercial success with the headstrong mancunians of factory, packed up and signed on london's dindisc label (a virgin subsidiary also to be notable for martha and the muffins and modern eon). dindisc quickly re-released electricity in september 1979 with the catalogue
number din2, though still credited as a factory records product. this time they released it with the hannett version of electricity and the label reads "produced by martin hannett" on both songs. omd fans refer to this version as the cargo session. despite
everyone's expectations it failed to make the charts.
a short while later dindisc released its second version of the electricity/almost (din2) single, but this time it was a brand new production recorded at omd's gramaphone suite studio in liverpool along with their first eponymous lp. this version is produced by chester valentino - a puzzling pseudonym of omd's manager paul collister, who for some reason chose to name himself after a club in the quaint city of chester. both versions have the same catalogue number and near identical sleeves - a black and white version of the first issue, but the back of the hannett version actually credits hannett and factory, whereas the back of the valentino version doesn't credit a producer at all. amazingly this too failed to make the charts.
eventually epic and virgin and dindisc and cbs collaborated to release a compilation of tracks from organisation and omd's first album, titled, confusingly enough, "omd", with a variant on the first cover- grey grill with orange light. they put electricity and almost on the album, credited both to martin hannett, and they are the real thing. you can tell because a) the
bass is up front, b) the voice is echoed, c) the keyboards are muted.
the "martin" cd/lp on factory has almost, embarassingly taken from the chester valentino session. the keyboard's loud tinnyness gives it away - i assume the real thing is lost, as many of factory record's master tapes are. buggers.
check out these other sites for more information:
