New Order - The new order of synth-pop

New Order emerged from a pact between the four members of Joy Division: if one of them left the group, the remaining three would have to change their name and musical style. Things turned out to be far less straightforward. On 18 May 1980, on the eve of their departure for their first American tour, singer Ian Curtis hanged himself in his bathroom at home. Bassist Peter Hook, guitarist Bernard Sumner, and drummer Steve Morris decided to fight off the shock by starting almost from scratch, with a handful of demos recorded just weeks before Curtis's death. They searched for a new voice, but after all three tried it out, they decided to hand the vocal duties to Sumner, who was nonetheless quite unsure of himself: he lacked Curtis's presence, and on top of that struggled to play and sing at the same time. After recording the debut single, "Ceremony", which still bears heavy traces of the Joy Division sound, the group only found a definitive shape after several shows performed under the name "New Division" and the arrival of Morris's girlfriend, Gillian Gilbert, who would play a decisive role in shifting the band's axis toward synth-pop.

New Order's first album, Movement, was released in 1981 to a cool reception from both critics and audiences. Joy Division fans found the drum-machine experiments on "Truth", "Senses" and "ICB" (the latter title an acronym for "Ian Curtis buried") weaker than the electronic potential shown by Joy Division's final work (tracks like "Komakino", "Isolation" or "She's Lost Control"), and criticized the evident attempt by a disoriented Sumner to imitate Curtis's deep vocal tone and dramatic cadences. The record, whose title itself is emblematic of a work of reconstruction rather than a finished statement, nonetheless already sounds markedly different from Joy Division on a dispassionate listen, closer to the neuroses of early Ultravox, with a greater gift for synthesis, a less urgent and far more reflective sense of drama. The album is essentially a recapitulation of the sound of Joy Division's two albums, recovering the metallic tone of the riffs from "Unknown Pleasures" on "Denial" and "Dreams Never End", and the funeral-procession tone of "Closer" on the extremely slow "Him" and "Doubts Even Here"; but the reverb on the vocals, the deliberately rough mixing, the reversal of rock tradition's usual roles for bass and rhythm guitar, and above all a far less rigidly structured songwriting, less geometric and more loose-limbed, seem to prefigure a break with the past that isn't quite complete. What might look like the album closest to Joy Division is actually only superficially so: while electronics would find more room on later records and Sumner and Hook's ideas would come into sharper focus, in truth their songwriting would always alternate between tracks deliberately recorded in a slapdash way in the studio and others structured to the point of excess.

New Order would prove capable of alternating electronic atmospheres worthy of Brian Eno (the mini-suite "Elegia" on Low Life) with dirty, brutal rock, while also tossing Kraftwerk-ian cleanliness out the window, turning simple disco tracks into long chaotic waves (the two versions of the single "Confusion" from 1983 and 1987 are quite telling), and airing dialogue and insults between the band members themselves, before eventually arriving at a fairly conventional rock-pop sound.

In general, the band's early work would be disowned by all four members in the years that followed: Bernard Sumner has stated he never owned a copy of Movement, and its songs were practically never played live. It's a painful record whose creative struggle was nonetheless soon left emphatically behind: 1982 brought the EP Dreams Are Over, containing tracks like "Temptation", "Confusion", "Cries And Whispers", "Mesh" — a striking step forward, including commercially: New Order of this period opened up to pop, but on their own terms, blending their punk origins with Kraftwerk's martial bearing, which, as had happened with Joy Division, drew accusations of fascism; shows lasted no more than 40 minutes, there were no encores, and no words exchanged between the musicians or addressed to the crowd; the tone was at once listless and rigorous, much like Sumner's impenetrable vocal parts. Their singles themselves were highly sought after yet hard to find; a clear preference for the new extended 12" format over the shorter 7" made it easier to arrive at their distinctive sound, built on a relentless interchangeability between drum machine and live drums, particularly dense and repetitive sonic textures, and riffs transplanted wholesale from guitar to sequencer.

At the same time, it was New Order themselves who created one of the cornerstone sounds of the Eighties, "Blue Monday/586" (1983): running over seven minutes long, the track is built entirely on samples from the famous Oberheim DMX drum machine, from which Steve Morris pulls and layers an ever-growing array of rhythmic patterns in a crescendo of complexity. The counterpoint between the violent, deep, almost plastic-toned beats and the whip-crack of the snare, Hook's galloping bass, and the Minimoog's Gregorian atmospheres creates an epic tone, one that Sumner's glacial, almost spoken vocal, far from undermining, makes even more solemn; Gillian Gilbert steps in at the end, conjuring the ghost of a melody and letting the track dissolve into nothing, before it picks back up in its instrumental version (the B-side "The Beach", which effectively stretches the track past 15 minutes). With remarkable intelligence, Sumner writes lyrics referencing the Falklands War that perfectly mirror the listener's sensation of being whipped by the relentless drums: “How does it feel/ to treat me like you do/ when you’ve your hands upon me/ and told me who you are” becomes one of the most celebrated verses of the decade.

"Blue Monday" remained, until the advent of the CD, the best-selling 12" in history. Power, Corruption And Lies, released in late '83, is the band's most innovative record, already so assured in defining its mini-suites that it could afford country detours ("Age Of Consent") and near-experimental touches, which would become more pronounced on the following Low Life (1985).

Most of the tracks nonetheless orbit around the sound of "Blue Monday" ("586" is in fact the original demo of that track, while "Ultraviolence", "Ecstasy" and "The Village" are other long, hypnotic rides, punctuated by Sumner's hesitant phrasing), though without reaching its polish, its true-classic perfection. What stands out above all are the arrangements, able to combine warm "disco" beats with glacial, synthetic atmospheres in the Kraftwerk mold. But the record's real distinguishing feature lies in the alternation between stripped-down, essentially guitar-driven compositions and others of a more electronic stamp, built almost entirely on keyboards and programming.

All the band members made heavy use of drugs, and their creativity was shaped by this above all during album production: Low Life was recorded in a single night, with damaging effects on the production and on Sumner's own vocal takes. Most of this album's tracks, too, follow the template set by the period's hit single, "Subculture", produced by Arthur Baker, then the deus ex machina of the New York disco scene; less consistent than the two previous records, it drifts between an already solid formula (the paranoid single "Perfect Kiss" and the Almond-esque "Sooner Than You Think"), a bit more guitar (the gorgeous "Sunrise", quite close to the furious Cure of "Pornography"), and assorted chemical alterations (the closing, delirious "Face Up", which is also a lesson in how to make a near-cartoonish techno-pop coexist in the same cramped space as an abrasive guitar worthy of Faust).

Low Life paves the way above all for disciples Primal Scream, in its mood swings and in its ability to hide, behind the apparent catatonia and irrelevance of its lyrics, a satanic smirk worthy of Jack Nicholson, a paranoid joy that carries Ian Curtis's physical and musical convulsions to perfection within the feverish climate of musical renewal of the early Nineties; where the Pet Shop Boys carry a caustic irony hidden behind impeccable pop structures, New Order, seemingly more hermetic, are in fact far more concrete and full-blooded, architects who proceed without a blueprint and are inclined to systematically tear down everything they have (already) built: the famous 1987 single "True Faith/1963", included on that year's compilation Substance, is a clear example. Produced by Stephen Hague, who had launched the duo behind "West End Girls", and accompanied by an equally famous video (rubber puppets slapping each other), "True Faith" is an impressionistic techno-pop track, chillingly sincere and irresistibly melodic, its keyboards continually reaching upward as Sumner tries to "find the day" and the light — which turns out to be the light of morning, the coldest kind. All of Curtis's old "Decades" is in there, and the brilliance of Gilbert and Morris's keyboards is entirely free of irony. Equally surprising is the B-side "1963", another enchanted, irresistible melody, wrapped in sinuous beds of keyboards.

Substance was a huge success that made up for the flop of the new album released that same year, the mediocre Brotherhood: presented as an attempt to return to their roots, it's without doubt the band's worst record. Split into two distinct halves, one of markedly rock-leaning jam sessions and one of more electronic tracks ("Bizzarre Love Triangle" becomes another classic of the decade and found notable success in Italy), once again produced in a rather slapdash way. Tracks like "Weirdo" and "Way Of Life" are nearly indistinguishable from one another; they do, however, pave the way for the New Order to come, less experimental and inclined toward a sharper split between the two souls of their sound.

Technique, recorded in 1989 between Ibiza and Manchester amid mounting rows and excess, is an answer to its predecessor cast in acid-house and techno terms, with far superior songwriting and a more polished production. "Fine Time" is a textbook track of the techno-pop season drawing to a close, where for the first time New Order allow themselves a joke or two, sampling a flock of sheep and poking fun at Barry White (“you know/ I had a lot of cool chicks/ but I never had a girl/ with all of her teeth”) "Mr. Disco" is a masterpiece of electronics applied to funk, "Vanishing Point" reworks "True Faith" at double speed; there's an air of forced merriment, of a binge about to end badly. New Order, almost reluctantly, became standard-bearers of the "summer of love" and the explosion of ecstasy use.

In Technique, a few rather dull acoustic fillers, like "Run", are nonetheless indicative of a simplification of the sound that mirrors the growing internal tensions within the band. Sumner forms a supergroup, Electronic, with Johnny Marr of the Smiths, former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos, and the Pet Shop Boys themselves, active sporadically between 1989 and 1998 and purveyor of a not particularly innovative brand of pop-rock, despite the big names involved.

Hook distances himself the most, forming Revenge, with a more rock-oriented sound, and then Monaco, an uninteresting hybrid that nonetheless sells more than Electronic themselves. "What Do You Want From Me" and "Sweet Lips" are solid hits, even if singer David Potts is a Sumner clone. Gilbert and Morris form The Other Two, working on various soundtracks.

The lukewarm Republic (1993) is made by New Order against the backdrop of the financial collapse of their Manchester club, the Hacienda, which throughout the Eighties had long been the go-to venue for the entire English music scene, not just the Mancunian one. Despite the clear debt owed to New Order by fashionable bands like Stone Roses or Primal Scream, the band itself seems by now spent, caught in the clash of personalities between its two leaders. "Regret", with a video shot in Rome, is the single lifted from the album, which otherwise drifts by fairly anonymously through the sloppy "World", "Ruined In A Day", "Young Offender", and the orchestral "Avalanche". It's the quartet's lowest point, with the members soon resuming solo activities and seeming on the verge of courtroom battles in the style of late-era Pink Floyd.

The death of manager Robert Gretton is the first step, in 1998, toward a reconciliation between the two leaders. A few triumphant performances at Reading and Glastonbury push New Order toward a new studio record, released in 2001: Get Ready succeeds where Brotherhood had failed, in its attempt to reconnect with the Joy Division sound. The single "Crystal", which recalls the Cure's "A Forest" a little, is a decent hit, but it's not the album's best moment. Bobby Gillespie and Billy Corgan step in, without much bite, to replace Gilbert, who left the band due to serious health problems affecting her daughter with Morris. There are very few keyboards on the record, then, with Hook's signature basslines played at sky-high registers and Sumner's abrasive guitars sounding as raw as they had since 1981; overall, though, the record is rather long-winded and suffers from the lack of Gilbert's melodic skills. The only track close to Eighties synth-pop, "Vicious Streak", is worth the price of the album on its own. Get Ready was followed by a collaboration with the Chemical Brothers, for the single "Here To Stay".

On the whole, New Order represent a synthesis of sounds that only seem reconcilable within the synth-pop melting pot, those of Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys, with an increasing closeness to the latter. Their importance lies chiefly in the first two albums, which anticipated the concept of "techno-rock" without losing the melodic gift that was Ian Curtis's own. The latter is a ghost that the band's members spent years trying to banish from their music, but one with whom they seem to have finally come to terms, after refusing for years to play Joy Division songs live.

If the quality of the songs is sometimes uneven, New Order's sound remains nonetheless essential: Morris's technical skill and the unique sound of Hook's bass, the band's true musical mind, gave a decisive push to the survival of new wave all the way through to the era of Prodigy and Trent Reznor. New Order's industrial pop, which drew not only on Joy Division but also on the more accessible side of bands like Throbbing Gristle and Coil, called into question the record-industry and production logic that it was at the same time helping to create (their label Factory was one of the most important of the Eighties and established, for example, the strategy of albums with virtually no identifying information, like the famous sleeve for "Blue Monday" modelled on an early floppy disk – the design of their records was handled by the celebrated graphic designer Peter Saville). The mysterious, brazen image that came through in Sumner's lyrics in the Eighties has over time become more accessible to the public, and the sound has essentially thinned out into a not-too-eclectic pop-rock, less abrasive and original, but of growing historical importance, which celebrated itself with the 2001 box-set Retro.

Waiting For The Sirens' Call (2005), made with the input of various prestigious producers, from veteran John Leckie to "Mr Madonna" Stuart Price, is the first true New Order album since 1989, one in which the band finally manages, instead of sharply separating rock tracks from dance tracks, to recover the crossover formula that made them shine in the Eighties and update it for an era in which such experiments seem able to work again (just think of newcomers Infadels and their explicit nods to the Manchester band). There's a flow that the repetitive Get Ready lacked, and that compositional-melodic gap that always seemed to separate them from their cousins Pet Shop Boys appears, paradoxically, closed in excellent tracks like "Dracula's castle", "Turn" and the title track. They even allow themselves a few departures from their usual "austerity", such as the pop-reggae openings of "I Told You So" (not coincidentally, 2005 also saw a collaboration, apparently one that ended badly, with pop sensation Gwen Stefani) and the unusual kitsch of the single "Jetstream" (featuring, not by chance, Ana Matronic, vocalist of the flashy Scissor Sisters). The album closes with a surprise, the Stooges-esque "Working Overtime", which seals a newfound freedom, an unexpected state of grace.

New Order's long story could have ended once and for all after the stormy split with Peter Hook in 2007. Everything stayed on standby for a long time, with the bassist caught up in celebratory tours and lawsuits aimed at stopping his former bandmates from using the historic name, Gillian Gilbert battling breast cancer, and Bernard Sumner absorbed in the modestly received side project Bad Lieutenant and in writing his autobiography, "Chapter and Verse".

The band's first ten years of activity were the subject of reissues widely criticized for their lack of attention to detail and some glaring mastering flaws, later corrected; then a compilation of dubious usefulness lined up their biggest hits right after a handful of Joy Division classics ("Total"). What finally ended the limbo was the illness of the band's longtime friend Michael H. Shamberg, who, thanks to the video for "True Faith", received a nomination at the 1988 Brit Awards: a series of concerts was organized to raise funds for the videomaker's treatment, though sadly he did not make it in the end.

The soap opera preceding the release of Music Complete (2015), in short, hadn't shown much light at the end of the tunnel. And yet here they are, freshly signed to Daniel Miller's Mute label after a glorious past with Factory (later absorbed by London) and two more recent chapters – three, if you count the far-from-negligible outtakes collection Lost Sirens – with Warner Music, handing us a record that couldn't be more quintessentially New Order. All the elements that made them unique in the crowded arena of Eighties synth-pop are there, the same ones that still make them a relevant band today, not just in the eyes of a handful of diehard, incurable nostalgics, but for a thoroughly multi-generational indie crowd: the guitars, now scratchy, now ingratiating, the synthesizers, Bernie's detached voice, the aura of mystery in the lyrics. There's not much room left for jam sessions; the imperative is to create everything with computers. And there's a need for new blood to draw vital energy from. The pairing with Elly, for instance, is a match made in heaven: if on the Moroder-esque "Plastic" she plays a supporting role alongside Denise Johnson, known for her work with Primal Scream, on "Tutti Frutti" she manages to carve out a co-starring role similar to the one played ten years ago by Scissor-sister Ana Matronic on "Jetstream", and on "People On The High Line", playing the sly, amused accomplice, she lets herself be swept onto the dance floor by a sensual funk groove à la Nile Rodgers.

The list of collaborators is only just beginning. The new lineup, which today also includes Tom Chapman – Bernard's partner already on "Never Cry Another Tear" – and Phil Cunningham, who replaced Gillian on the band's penultimate record, has brought together idols and disciples in a praiseworthy synthesis that hadn't worked this well since the days of Technique: Giacomo Cavagna's Italian-language cameo lends a forgivable kitsch touch to "Tutti Frutti" – the track is a tour de force combining a backing track that reeks of Daft Punk with strings underpinning a chorus that, whether they intended it or not, recalls "The Night You Murdered Love" by Abc. A boring evening spent channel-surfing led Bernard to write the poem that later became the text recited by Iggy Pop on "Stray Dog", the track that, more than any other, conjures the ghost of Ian Curtis over a backing track that sounds like "She's Lost Control" from start to finish. The chemistry between New Order and the Chemical Brothers is well established, and here Tom Rowlands shows he knows exactly where to put his hands on the right tracks ("Singularity" and the sweeping "Unlearn This Hatred", almost an out-of-season summer anthem), Stuart Price lends a bit of his magic dust to "Superheated", and Brandon Flowers, who also owes New Order the name of his band ("The Killers" was the fictional band that appeared in the "Crystal" video), confirms himself as the eternal pop showman, leaning on a melody that Erasure would kill for today.

The one thing missing from the big party is him, Hooky. It's not easy to replace one of the most recognizable bass sounds of the last four decades, yet Chapman's work is admirable on every track of the lot. The album's title is a playful nod to musique concrète, Peter Saville's cover (a family member, as we well know) recalls Piet Mondrian's 1920s tableaux, but the sound is as fresh and accessible as one could hope for. At once exquisitely backward-looking and perfectly slotted into the present, Music Complete is the usual masterful summa of bittersweet riffs, irresistible beats, creative energy, and a bit of honest craft that comes to the rescue when it's time to make a track like "Restless" less bland. New Order are back among us, and if these are the results, we'd better hold on to them tight.

Contributions by Alessandro Liccardo ("Music Complete")

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