New Order

Ian Curtis had only been buried for one year before the surviving members of Joy Division returned to the studio, dried their tears and attempted making music again. Out of the still reddened ashes of the most emblematic post-punk group, New Order was born. A newcomer Gillian Gilbert was on keys. The guitarist Bernard Sumner donned the captain’s armband. And Martin Hannett, Joy Division’s producer, was again behind the controls. Recorded between the 24th of April and 4th of May 1981 and released on the 11th of November of the same year on Factory Records, the band’s first album is an impeccable transition of which time makes it only more impressive. The rigidity and coldness of Joy Division’s anthracite rock remains at the heart of the compositions. Sharp rhythms and clear guitars with depressive, sickly groans like a zombie on its last legs, Movement contains, however, beginnings of a sound atypical from the young Mancunians that never smile. We are still far from the electronic new wave and dance that New Order demonstrate on their subsequent album, but the role of keys and synths here shows beginnings of a new path for the band. This 2019 Definitive edition offers, in addition to a stellar remastering, 18 demos and alternative mixes. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Born out of the ashes of Joy Division in the early 1980s, New Order symbolises one of the first truly successful unions between rock’n’roll and dance music. The darkest Mancunian band of the punk era who had transformed into masters of the dancefloor signed the perfect soundtrack to the gloomy England under Thatcher. Released in the summer of 1987 on the label Factory, Substance brings together all their various styles and singles like the hits Blue Monday, Ceremony, Confusion, The Perfect Kiss or Bizarre Love Triangle. This was obviously the golden age for the quartet made up of Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris. Despite a few highlights (such as the album Technique in 1989), New Order never really reached this level of composition again... © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

For fifteen years now New Order has had to make do without a bassist, and without their co-founder Peter Hook, who stormed out in 2006. The new line-up, led by Bernard Sumner with Stephen Morris, Gillian Gilbert, Phil Cunningham and Tom Chapman, is clearly doing no worse, as we can tell from this new live record (their fifth in ten years) made in November 2018 in London's Alexandra Palace. The concert opens with Wagner, before raining down blow after blow on Singularity, which is one of four tracks on the setlist to be taken from the 2015 album Music Complete (the first album they made without Peter Hook). And while the record didn't win around the critics, this track makes masterful use of the old Joy Division DNA. The ghost of Ian Curtis looms over this 140-minute performance, with searing mementoes in the form of Atmosphere, Decades and Love Will Tear Us Apart which closes the set. Along the way, we get all the hits: from Blue Monday to Bizarre Love Triangle and The Perfect Kiss, all in a venue brought to the boil by an ecstatic, nostalgic audience. It's enough to cheer up even the bluest Monday. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

In his 2016 autobiography Substance: Inside New Order, Peter Hook writes: “I’ve often said that the magic of New Order was all that push-and-pull between the rock and electronic sides of the music, the yin and yang of Barney [Sumner] and me.” Power, Corruption & Lies, New Order’s second studio album released in May 1983, confirms this comment and features an even more electronic sound. With its famous cover art that depicts a reworking by graphic designer Peter Saville of 19th century French painter Henri Fantin-Latour’s Un panier de roses (A basket of roses), the record alternates between innovative electro-pop (5-6-8) and synthetic cold wave (Your Silent Face), but also more classic post-punk (Age of Consent). What’s more, Sumner’s vocals are his own and the influence of Ian Curtis is a distant memory. With Power, Corruption & Lies, New Order fused the influences of Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder to give birth to their own unstoppable compositions, cornerstones for the British electronic pop of that era. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

In his 2016 autobiography Substance: Inside New Order, Peter Hook writes: “I’ve often said that the magic of New Order was all that push-and-pull between the rock and electronic sides of the music, the yin and yang of Barney [Sumner] and me.” Power, Corruption & Lies, New Order’s second studio album released in May 1983, confirms this comment and features an even more electronic sound. With its famous cover art that depicts a reworking by graphic designer Peter Saville of 19th century French painter Henri Fantin-Latour’s Un panier de roses (A basket of roses), the record alternates between innovative electro-pop (5-6-8) and synthetic cold wave (Your Silent Face), but also more classic post-punk (Age of Consent). What’s more, Sumner’s vocals are his own and the influence of Ian Curtis is a distant memory. With Power, Corruption & Lies, New Order fused the influences of Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder to give birth to their own unstoppable compositions, cornerstones for the British electronic pop of that era. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

In 1978, Joy Division made their first TV appearance in the former Manchester Granada studios on Tony Wilson’s show, So It Goes. In the summer of 2017, New Order (aka Joy Division Mark II) returned to the scene of the crime for 5 concerts, with ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So It Goes… being their 13th July performance. Despite not being particularly renowned for their on-stage performances, they still continue to regularly release live albums. After BBC Radio 1 Live in Concert in 1992, Live at the London Troxy in 2011, Live at Bestival 2012 in 2013 and NOMC15 in 2017, Bernard Sumner’s band conceived this show with artist Liam Gillick, who is normally better suited to the Tate Modern than to concert halls. Some tracks have even been reworked with the help of composer Joe Duddell and a 12-strong synthesizer ensemble.But one thing that fans will be particularly pleased by is the set list. Songs now seldom performed by the Mancunian group (such as Times Change from Republic, Vanishing Point from Technique, Ultraviolence from Power, Corruption and Lies and Plastic from Music Complete) as well as four Joy Division tracks (In a Lonely Place, Decades, Heart & Soul and Disorder, songs which haven’t been played live in 30 years!) make for a very special record. Without resting on their laurels, the quintet consisting of the original line-up (Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert) along with later additions (Phil Cunningham and Tom Chapman) perform completely reworked versions of their hits from the last century, proving that they most certainly still have things left to say. © Max Dembo/Qobuz

In his 2016 autobiography Substance: Inside New Order, Peter Hook writes: “I’ve often said that the magic of New Order was all that push-and-pull between the rock and electronic sides of the music, the yin and yang of Barney [Sumner] and me.” Power, Corruption & Lies, New Order’s second studio album released in May 1983, confirms this comment and features an even more electronic sound. With its famous cover art that depicts a reworking by graphic designer Peter Saville of 19th century French painter Henri Fantin-Latour’s Un panier de roses (A basket of roses), the record alternates between innovative electro-pop (5-6-8) and synthetic cold wave (Your Silent Face), but also more classic post-punk (Age of Consent). What’s more, Sumner’s vocals are his own and the influence of Ian Curtis is a distant memory. With Power, Corruption & Lies, New Order fused the influences of Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder to give birth to their own unstoppable compositions, cornerstones for the British electronic pop of that era. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

For Music Complete, New Order's ninth album and first in a decade, the band signed to new label Mute and welcomed keyboardist Gillian Gilbert back for her first recordings with them since 2001. Unfortunately, original bassist Peter Hook, who quit in 2007, didn't return and his bass duties were taken over by Tom Chapman, who played with Bernard Sumner in Bad Lieutenant. The return of Gilbert is a clue that the band is looking to the past for inspiration here and forsaking the guitar-driven rock orientation of its last couple albums for something more balanced, if not tipped in favour of more electronic and dancefloor-oriented songs. To that end, they brought in Chemical Brother Tom Rowlands as well as Richard X and Stuart Price to produce tracks. Not the most daring or forward-looking choices for collaborators, but their efforts result in some of the album's highlights. Rowlands invests "Singularity" with some Chemical Brothers-style punch, while "Unlearn This Hatred" has a passionate, almost industrial drive. © CM/Qobuz