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Strut and compiler Bill Brewster assembled this two-disc Factory compilation without Joy Division and New Order. They also excluded Happy Mondays, even though that band hit its stride just within the era, 1980-1987, the set documents. That's a little perverse. Then again, everything released by the Manchester, England label's marquee acts has been widely available, while numerous deep label highlights have been left underexposed, even in the wake of LTM's Cool as Ice/Twice as Nice anthologies of dancefloor productions from New Order's Bernard Sumner, A Certain Ratio's Donald Johnson, and U.S. counterparts Mark Kamins and Arthur Baker. Fac. Dance also fills several gaps left by Rhino U.K.'s fine Factory Records: Communications 1978-1992 box set without slipping into "mere curiosity" territory. All of this is relevant to Factory's story and translates to the present, while some selections -- 52nd Street's "Cool as Ice," Quando Quango's "Love Tempo," Section 25's "Looking from a Hilltop," Marcel King's "Reach for Love," Abecedarians' "Smiling Monarchs" -- deserve to be as known as New Order's "Blue Monday." The packaging is attractive, the track details are thorough, and Brewster's liner notes are, as usual, informative and illuminating. Even if you're a Factory obsessive who owns all the vinyl or has picked up all those '90s/2000s compilations, the set's pull is hard to resist
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