Last Sunday, at the same record fair booth where I found Marc Almond’s fantastic “Melancholy Rose” 12” single, I came across an Italian copy of Quando Quango’s 12” “Two From Quando,” featuring the song “Atom Rock,” released on a Bologna label called Base Record, although it’s still marked with the Factory Records catalog number FAC 102. Sweet! There was no way I was leaving the record fair without this record, even if I *technically* already have the song on vinyl. 

Quando Quango first came into my orbit thanks to a compilation called Cool As Ice: The Be Music Productions. Released in 2003, it’s a collection of music produced by members of New Order as Be Music between 1983 and 1985. There are two tracks from Quando Quango on there, “Love Tempo” and “Atom Rock,” both of which were produced by the dream team of Bernard Sumner, using the name Be Music, and A Certain Ratio’s Donald Johnson, under the name DoJo. At the time that copies of Cool As Ice landed in the bins at Amoeba, I was promoting and DJing a Wednesday night party at a now long-gone West Hollywood bar called The Parlour called Transmission. If the name weren’t a total giveaway, I was pretty obsessed with everything related to Joy Division and New Order, as were a lot of the regulars, so I played both those songs often. And, since one of the few constants in this world is that I’m still a little on the Joy Division/New Order obsessive side and still play for people who are riding the same wave, “Love Tempo” and “Atom Rock” still turn up in my sets. All of this a super tl;dr way of justifying my purchase, btw. 

Unless you’re pretty deep into the post-punk and post-disco early ‘80s, the name Quando Quango might not be instantly familiar, but they were one of the most covertly influential groups to come out of the Factory Records family. The core of the group during its early-to-mid ‘80s existence was Mike Pickering and Hillegonda “Gonnie” Rietveld. Pickering worked for Factory Records and was a DJ at the Hacienda. As a longtime A&R guy, he’s known for signing Happy Mondays, Kylie Minogue, The Gossip and Calvin Harris. As a musician, he’s best known for M People, who were much better known in the U.K. than in the U.S. Rietveld went into academia and is the author of the book This Is Our House: House Music, Cultural Spaces and Technologies. She’s also wrote a short, but super fascinating bio of Quando Quango that you click this link to read. My eyes practically popped out of my head as I read about the band’s interactions with everyone from ABC to Lisa Stansfield. 

Which reminds me— did I mention that Johnny Marr plays guitar on “Two From Quando”? JOHNNY MARR!!!!

Quando Quango’s influences were all of the place and you can hear that in “Atom Rock,” from the punk-funk guitar to the new wave soul in the horns to the dubby production and this one all-too-brief synth moment that reminds me of the Telex song “Moskow Diskow.” The flipside, “Triangle,” leans into the funk, although you can hear that they’re also coming from a similar musical point of view as New Order circa “Confusion.” Both are killer tracks. 

Ultimately, Quando Quango were amongst the genre-smashing bands of the early ‘80s, like both New Order and A Certain Ratio, whose sound would set the stage multiple styles of dance music that emerged later in the decade. By the early ‘00s, this style of dance-rock experienced a full-on revival with bands like !!!, The Rapture, LCD Soundsystem and many others.

All of this is to say that, if you happen to see “Two From Quando” out in the wild, get it.

Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs or listen to the latest Beatique Mix. Follow on Instagram for more updates.

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