Cuttings

THE FACS OF LIFE With the new Factory Records compilation, Palatine , providing a lavish retrospective, Martin Townsend speaks to ANTHONY WILSON and NEW ORDER about the label's enduring (if erratic) success Factory Records' chairman Tony Wilson has an enthusiast's obsession with minute detail. Mention OMD, for instance, and he can take you to the exact bend in the road, just outside Manchester. where his wife first played him the band's demo cassette. As with most enthusiasts, however. 41-year-old Wilson lets his heart rule his head - the history of Factory Records is a bizarre and often shambolic catalogue of triumphs and misadventures. The new four-record retrospective, Palatine (named after the road in which the label's first HQ was located), fails to tell even half the story. " Palatine , interestingly, is not a history," says Wilson, lounging in the company's enormous loft-cum-board-room in central Manchester, It's four very good al

Out of Order! Electronic Raise The Pressure (Parlophone) OH, THE eulogies that greeted Electronic’s landmark debut in 1990. Somehow, ‘Electronic’ seemed to be exactly what the world was waiting for. Boasting New Order’s left-field synth-pop smoothness and the instantly recognisable jangle of Johnny Marr's heroic guitar, it skipped into our hearts on a roll of sharp dance beats. It was in other words, perfect pop. Perfect for a world then in the fevered grip of indie-dance crossovers. Six years on, nothing has changed - except the world. ‘Raise The Pressure' still offers plenty of perfect pop moments, but these are emphatically not of the moment. Four years in the making, ‘Raise The Pressure’ blithely strolls along from dance-pop ditty to dance-pop ditty, oblivious to the revolutions in electronic music ignited by the likes of jungle and trip-hOp. Where before, Barney Sumner's synthesised strings and simple, house-y rhythms sounded clean and bright, they now trig

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