Cuttings

The Observer Music Magazine - Please yourself March 2005 ARE NEW Order the best band to come out of Manchester? It’s a good question to which there is no easy answer. It depends, perhaps, not only on a band’s back catalogue but also on their current form. There was always something great about New Order — the fact that they didn’t give up when Ian Curtis killed himself almost 25 years ago; that they slipped with such ease between rock, and dance, providing the vital link between Seventies disco and Eighties house music; that when they could be bothered to put some effort into their gigs, they were nothing short of awesome — but over the years they have rarely been consistent. Perhaps it’s because they don’t always get on: after all, 2001’s guitar-led Get Ready was New Order’s first album for eight years because until that point they couldn’t stand the sight of one another. And now, a year before Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook will turn 50, they are back once more, with an albu...

NME Postcards

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/aug/12/features.magazine37 The Observer - Northern rock For 17 years, they lived the rock'n'roll dream. But then drink, drugs, debt (and a packet of crisps) tore them apart. Now, almost a decade later, the Manchester band is back. Miranda Sawyer gets ready for the second coming of New Order Miranda Sawyer Sun 12 Aug 2001 13.45 BST Tokyo, July 2001. Japan is in melt-down: Sony's quarterly profits have dropped 90 per cent; the state health programme is set for collapse; juvenile violence and unemployment are at a record high. And tomorrow the general election will be won by a man whose principle job qualification is a nice head of hair. Not that any of this is of concern to the motley crew of middle-aged Westerners hanging outside the Hotel Okura. They have far higher matters to consider. 'Where's the Hello Kitty shop?' demands Bernard Sumner of the nearest taxi driver. 'Take me there. To Kitty World!...

The Guardian - 'Suddenly the reality hit me' https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/sep/22/periodandhistorical How does it feel to watch the life and death of your father being re-enacted on film? Natalie Curtis, daughter of Joy Division singer, Ian Curtis, went on set, camera in hand, to find out Natalie Curtis First published on Sat 22 Sep 2007 03.00 BST I was about three when my mum first told me that my father, Ian Curtis - who died when I was one - was a singer, but it just seemed normal, like having an uncle who was a tradesman or whatever. I remember hearing Love Will Tear Us Apart on the radio and realising he was known in some way, but I never thought of him as famous. When I was growing up, neither myself nor my mother were in the public eye, and Joy Division were more cult than mainstream. The first time I heard their album Closer, I thought it was out of this world. I assumed all music was done with that level of style and intelligence. As I gre...

NME - CRIES AND WHISPERS New Order North London Polytechnic NEW ORDER at the London Poly was sold out before it was announced: by Christmas most outlets were starting to turn people away. The straggle of fans desperately searching for touts outside the hall demonstrated how popular New Order have become. It would be easy to put their popularity down to the legacy of an inherited legend, but they've not so easily dismissable. That they have something valuable to offer in their own right was evident a long time ago from a Peel session recorded early last year, which sounded a lot more confident than their live appearance at the time. When they played Heaven in February, they were nervous and unformed, a condition catalysed by the heavy cloud of anticipation hanging over everyone, and the obvious scrutiny with which they were observed and assessed. At Walthamstow in early autumn, they sounded old and tired, almost jaded before they'd fully begun.  Maybe they were disi...

NME - SURE BEACH WORKING NEW ORDER Technique (Factory LP/ Cassette/CD) WHAT HAVE New Order been doing since their last studio LP? The creative lull which, despite the odd single, has stretched for what seems like aeons has at last come to a close. We've been presented with 'Technique', certainly one of New Order‘s most consistent works to date, and one which avoids the usual flaws and imperfections they've borne like minor disabilities since their inception. It's an impressive polished edifice erected like a monument to a newly-discovered maturity and confidence, shining with the lightness of being. Almost optimistic, in fact. Gone are the doubts, half-guesses and hesitations which characterised their music for so long. A recurring sense of discovery permeates each song as the spectrum of human emotion is explored and investigated, be it loneliness, inarticulacy, joy or (most essentially) love. 'Technique' doesn't deny the darker experiences...

The Observer -  It won't make you cringe, but... NEW ORDER Waiting for the Sirens Call FOR SUCH A celebrated musical force, New Order have, occasionally, been underwhelming. They may have written the biggest-selling 12in single ever, ‘Blue Monday’, in 1983, and, a clutch of sublime songs that cleverly congealed the guitar-bass-drums blood of rock with electronics. But there has always been an evenness about their momentum that could quickly slip into... well... boredom. They have been masters of steady, steely percolation rather than build and climax. Get Ready, New Order’s 2001 foray out of their Manchester boltholes after eight years away, amped up the rock, but to no earthshaking effect. Working back, 1993’s Republic album had its idle patches, as did 1986’s Brotherhood, the record that preceded New Order’s totemic Technique record of 1989, the album Waiting for the Sirens’ Call reputedly harks back to. The ordinariness of Bernard Sumner’s vocals and the bland...

NEW ORDER are attempting to buy Factory Communications’ 50 percent stake in Manchester’s Hacienda club and the Dry Bar. The deal would turn the Manchester band into the biggest single shareholder in the two concerns. Band frontman Barney Sumner said they have invested much of their income from New Order in the club. “We have more of an input than we'd like because we’d all just like to be musicians," he said. “But there's so much money in the Hacienda that if someone was to make a mistake we could lose every penny we’ve ever earned Peter Hook said the band, who were with Factory for 12 years before signing to London Records in January, are attempting to put together a deal involving unnamed former employees of Factory. The future of both the Hacienda and the Dry bar has been unclear ever since Factory closed in November. New Order played a part in deciding to close the Hacienda for six months last year because of gang violence in Manchester. See page 5 for ...

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...

NME - BOUND FOR  BILLBOARD ! NEW ORDER A CERTAIN RATIO New York Felt Forum SWITCHING FROM haphazard indie distribution in the US to Quincy Jones‘ Qwest label,  distributed by Warner Brothers, has made a big difference for New Order's Stateside commercial prospects. One major signal that things are changing was that this 5,000-capacity venue sold by word of mouth alone. The support act is the same one they had at their American debut at the tiny Tier 3 club in ’79. New Order have moved forward. A Certain Ratio haven't. 'Shack Up' may have been a nice, tightly-wound moment, but aside from that I can't see what has given these guys a reputation as some kind of mutant funk firebreathers. They have settled into a stagnant muck. The rhythms lack all attack, yet the band preens with self-importance as they play them. They end with a half-baked salsafied jam that any rag-tag Central Park Saturday ensemble could cut to shreds. New Order, on the other hand, ar...

NME   NEW ORDER THE WAKE JAMES Brixton Academy FOR GRAND Master Flunkers of a less-than-Arfur Baker-ed funk, New Order have received more than a fair share of sycophantic press coverage in their three year history. While their monotonous guitar breaks rang around the country to cries of "Spectacular!", their superficial spirit sat twiddling its thumbs in boredom. Tonight New Order were spectacularly boring.   Thank God then for James, a Factory band with the sort of talent that most headliners would struggle to find in a month of blue Mondays. If regulation guitar, drums. bass and vocals are back in style then add to your list of potential hit-makers this magnificent four-piece band.   Beginning a well constructed, well received set with the patting of a cow-bell in 'Hymn Of A Village',  James build their sound around flurries of cascading vocals tacked on to the janglings of a post-Postcard guitar. Skipping from a chugging, almost Latin beat in '...

NME - THE SOUND & THE FURY FROM MANCHESTER WITH LOVE Liverpool Royal Court AND SO THEY came, grumbling down the East Lancashire Road - three container trucks full of drums and wires - with love from Manchester. So here we are. Listening to the psychotic violence of Peter Hook's bass leading us into 'The Perfect Kiss' and several hours of dark satanic pop in aid of the 49 Labour councillors up before the beak. New Order do what they've alway done. Switching on their machines they play Joy-less tunes for metropolitan cathedrals, so careless, so uncomplicated, so uncalculating, that splintered symphonies emerge just when they’re concentrating most intently on pleasing nobody but themselves. "Fuck off", requests the bald-headed Barn before scraping away at his guitar, his ear to the fretboard, his face contorted in a “I’m sure this is out of tune" fashion. I'm happy for them. New Order have jumped all over the carefully shorn privet h...

Melody Maker - ORDER ORDER! NEW ORDER Barrowland, Glasgow HALF this audience looks like it got lost on the way to some other, unspecified event. There are punks, bikers, grimy 15 -year~old intellectuals, split-ends-ridden hippies and a million metres of grey overcoat. There's an aroma of sweat and cheap hair gel, a sense of enormous, overbearing passivity . And then, finally, New Order come on. Fifty minutes later, they go off, having hammered out an overfast, sickeningly brutalised version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart", dedicated to the memory of the woman who ran New York's Danceteria, tragically killed last week. "This song's for a friend of ours, who unfortunately couldn't be with us tonight ... because she's dead . . . " Yeah, very moving, lads. Very subtle. Very cool, New Order want to to be a machine, turning out tunes 'n' rhythms in the classic Kraftwerkian industrial mould. But where Kraftwerk at their best managed to i...

NME - ERM, NEW ORDURE NEW ORDER BBC Radio 1, Live In Concert LET IT be noted right from the start that this - the first New Order live album - is the brainchild of BBC Radio 1. It has not been released by Factory Records nor instigated by New Order themselves in any way whatsoever. The reason this is so significant is that no-one, not even those New Order diehards who would see Barney knighted and Hookey's bollocks immortalised in bronze and displayed in the Tate, would argue that New Order's greatest moments have ever been within slashing distance of a stage. By and large, and with only the odd exception (there will always be a lunatic fringe and it will always find a home at the NME office), New Order are accepted as being as integral to the creative welfare of the live circuit as Dennis Neilsen once was to the smooth running of the North London sewage system. l stumbled upon this fundamental pop truth early in life. One of my first ever gigs was New Order head...