Hex Enduction Hour

Mark E. Smith felt Rough Trade undervalued the group, and the Fall moved to the small Kamera label. In September 1981 they played three concerts in Reykjavik, organised by Einar Orn, and recorded "Hip Priest", "Iceland" and the single "Look, Know" at the Hljodriti studio, which had lava walls. Kamera paid for the rest, hired producer Richard Mazda, and the other tracks were recorded in a disused cinema in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Karl Burns had returned, so for the first time on an album the Fall had Burns and Paul Hanley as two drummers.

Smith said the title was meant to invoke witchcraft, with "Enduction" suggesting an induction into the Fall. The all-white sleeve is covered in pen scribbles by Smith, and HMV would only shelve it back to front. "And This Day" originally ran about 25 minutes and was edited to ten. Smith described the production as deliberately raw, recorded in "deliberately bad places".

Reception

It was the first Fall album to reach the UK Albums Chart, where it spent three weeks and peaked at number 71. By mid-1983 it had sold 20,000 copies. Richard Cook of the NME called it "their master piece to date", and Edwin Pouncey of Sounds wrote that it was "the Fall's finest hour". Pitchfork listed it 33rd among the best albums of the 1980s, and Stewart Lee says it is his favorite album and "probably the best album of all time".