Cuttings

ANIMAL New Order: impenetrable darkness, enveloping gloom and clinging blackness. NEW ORDER Republic If The Smiths were the best British group of the 1980s, then fellow Mancunian miseryguts New Order were the most important. Their restless welding of successive waves of dance music and new technologies to Barney Sumner’s ever-improving singing and ever more personal lyrics continually redefined the edges of indigenous rock and pop. Many more commercially successful groups, Pet Shop Boys and The Cure among them, owed a debt to the sometimes meandering, always understated New Order. The band's last studio album, 1989's truly great Technique, a seamless meshing of synthesized rock grooves, traditional instrumentation and Sumner's plaintive lyrics, was largely hatched on Ecstasy island, Ibiza, and, along with The Stone Roses' debut, it remains the artistic peak of that whole UK acid/E/Madchester thing. Everything New Order have done since (the Electronic, Revenge...

Manchester declares 'Republic' NEW ORDER’s first recordings for three years will be released on their own ‘Manchester’ label, which has been set up as part of their new deal with London Records. A new single ‘Regrets’ (out April 5) will christen the label, which will be exclusively for “New Order and their friends”, according to bassist Peter Hook. The band are currently remixing the B-side, ‘Mixed Regrets’, at Liverpool’s Parr Street Studios. An Andy Weatherall mix has already been completed. It will be followed in May by a 13-track album ‘Republic’, New Order’s first since ‘Technique’ in February 1989. In a sleeve designed by Peter Saville, tracks include ‘Regrets’, ‘World (Price Of Love)’, ‘Avalanche’, ‘Chemical’, ‘Liar’, ‘Everyone Everywhere’ and ‘Techno 2’. The new material was recorded entirely at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studio in Bath and produced by Stephen Hague before the collapse of Factory Records, said Hook. He told NME: “it was a bit of bad timing re...

ANIMAL New Order: impenetrable darkness, enveloping gloom and clinging blackness. NEW ORDER Republic If The Smiths were the best British group of the 1980s, then fellow Mancunian miseryguts New Order were the most important. Their restless welding of successive waves of dance music and new technologies to Barney Sumner’s ever-improving singing and ever more personal lyrics continually redefined the edges of indigenous rock and pop. Many more commercially successful groups, Pet Shop Boys and The Cure among them, owed a debt to the sometimes meandering, always understated New Order. The band’s last studio album, 1989's truly great Technique, a seamless meshing of synthesized rock grooves, traditional instrumentation and Sumner's plaintive lyrics, was largely hatched on Ecstasy island, Ibiza, and, along with The Stone Roses' debut, it remains the artistic peak of that whole UK acid/E/Madchester thing. Everything New Order have done since (the Electronic, Revenge a...

VOX - GETTING THEIR HOUSE IN ORDER NEW ORDER Republic (London tba) When New Order last filed a despatch -with 1989’s Technique , recorded in a suitably blissed-out state in Ibiza - they set the mood for a brief era. Then, having released the perfect album to usher in the age of indie/dance crossover, they stepped back and watched an entire scene come and go under their benign gaze. Four years later, the backdrop to their return is one of upheaval, of Madchester’s visible disintegration with the Mondays burn-out, growing violence in the city, and, of course, the collapse of Factory. Rumours of splits have plagued them these past few years, fuelled by the varying degrees of success enjoyed in their respective solo projects but, seemingly against the odds, Republic is testimony that New Order are still together. It was not, however, a happy project, and people are already saying it may be their last. Nevertheless, Republic doesn’t exactly find New Order descending into th...

NME - TEN SUMNER'S TALES* *OK, WE KNOW THERE'S 11 NEW ORDER Republic (London/All formats) A SHOWER of sparks, some sprinkling of dust, a flurry of snow, a stiff breeze and New Order return near-triumphant after four years in the superstar wilderness, still sculpting and creating music as dizzyingly pretty as an azure chemical sunset over Los Angeles. The oceanscapes, landscapes and cityscapes of the world might have changed almost beyond recognition in the interim, but this Mancunian quartet have managed to retain their poignant, indefinable essence while voyaging tentatively into new waters. It can't be the easiest task in Christendom to sculpt an album that marries the machine-dreams of the purest Euro techno with funk percussiveness and absolutely haywire melodies - these musical cul-de-sacs are usually mutually exclusive - and string wayward, frothy, accusing and tender poetry on top, but more often than not they've pulled it off. But what do New Ord...