Various Artists: Factory Records: Communications 1978-92 (Features)

Factory Records was as influential in design, sound production, and defining what a label could be as it was in music.

It’s tempting to place the history of Factory Records within the spaces between its chronological first song and the last song of Factory’s original incarnation, both of which appear in that sequence on Rhino Records’ expansive four-disc box set Factory Records: Communications 1978-92. The first track from the four-way split A Factory Sample EP, FAC 2, is Joy Division’s “Digital”, an urgent starter built around an oscillating riff and lyrics that are both claustrophobic and bleak. Singer Ian Curtis’s vocals are delivered with a militaristic physicality that perfectly befits his group’s future SS-inspired fashion sense. As he shouts on the…