Cuttings

NEW ORDER: SUBSTANCE 1989 NEW ORDER aren't, admittedly, a band who lend themselves to the usual video toss: they don't smite much, they have no known pretensions to acting fame, and frequently they don't even appear to move. On the duff videos here, they are glimpsed standing on stage, sitting in cabs or hanging around in concert halls while the director intercuts interesting bits of drama — a bit of silly dialogue (featuring Jonathan Demme) on Robert Longo's vid for 'Bizarre Love Triangle'; a lot of Arthur Baker nodding along to 'Confusion' (the work of one Charles Sturridge)and I've already completely forgotten what happens in 'Shellshock'— and the result is wildly forgettable. However, when the director shows either sympathy for the band's attitudes or a creative imagination which matches New Order's style, then things are topper. Here we have Robert Breer and William Wegman's film for 'Blue Monday 1988', a m...

NME - ASHES AND DIAMONDS JOY DlVISION  Substance (Factory LP Cassette CD)  THEY STILL make outlandish claims and say ludicrous things about the meagre legacy left by this Manchester band. Joy Division lived and recorded for three years (1977-1980). But during that time, it’s claimed they broached new areas of thought and deed, foresaw the millenium, inspired one writer to feel "I could spit in the face of God" and another to hear "the full stop, the end of pop." Even for the disclaimers and early champions of the band, Ian Curtis’ suicide gave a new, unerring fascination to the group’s music and subject matter. The fallout was anything but heathy. Joy Division, more by default rather than design, spawned a tunnel vision brand of English miserabilism. Their influence has often cast a self-pitying pallor over the culture they left behind. According to manager Rob Gretton, ‘Substance’ is released to help New Order, the band JD spawned, with their tax probl...

NME - POWER, CONVICTION, LIES! NEW ORDER Substance ( Factory ) WE CHUCK words at New Order. Words like funereal and ethereal and classical and awesome . We treat their music religiously as if staring, open-eared before a mountainous terrain of rushing torrents and echoing valleys; as if their creations rise and fall and rise again while the humble human elements struggle to stand firm in a mightly synthesised soundscape. That sort of stuff. Meanwhile they've packaged themselves almost anonymously. And they’ve offered us few explanations, few indications as to their collective states of mind. On stage they appear disinterested and distant; in interviews they behave like irresponsible tosspots, making it impossible to reconcile the people with the product. So here we are - precisely ten years on from Joy Division's raw inception - at Fac 200. "Now that we've grown up together" as Bernard (Barney) Dicken (Sumner Albrecht sings in 'True Faith"...