Archives for September 2018

Certain Songs #1315: New Order – “Sunrise”

September 9, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Low-Life
Year: 1985

With Gillian Gilbert setting the scene with a dark dark synth tone, “Sunrise” hinted at a road not taken for New Order: continuing on the hard-rocking path originally blazed by Joy Division.

That, of course, would have been a disaster. They were able to get away with it for “Ceremony” and “Dreams Never End,” but the only way that New Order to be a viable band by 1985 was to do exactly what they did: make their own path by fully embracing the electronics that had always existed at the fringe of Joy Division’s sound.

Certain Songs #1314: New Order – “Love Vigilantes”

September 8, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Low-Life
Year: 1985

If Power, Corruption & Lies showcased a band that had figured out their totally unique sound, the follow-up, 1985’s Low-Life, was the sound of that band alternately celebrating and deconstructing that sound.

So while singles “Sub-Culture” and “The Perfect Kiss” (those fucking bullfrogs) were pretty much what you expected, other songs, like the abstract “Elegia,” the goth “Sunrise” and the opening track, “Love Vigilantes” came from left field.

Certain Songs #1313: New Order – “Your Silent Face”

September 7, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Power, Corruption and Lies
Year: 1983

In just three years, we’d gotten to the point where the most atypical song on any New Order album would be the one that sounded the most like a Joy Division callback — in this case, “Isolation” from Closer — and yet was still a showcase for their progression, both musical and technological.

And so it was with “Your Silent Face,” six minutes of utter bliss that slowly rumbled out of the beginning of side two of Power, Corruption & Lies. The synth wash that Gillian Gilbert plays is so lovely and evocative, I used it for at least one music bed while doing promos for KFSR.

Certain Songs #1312: New Order – “The Village”

September 6, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Power, Corruption and Lies
Year: 1983

Of course, here’s the thing about New Order’s unprecedented fusion of synth-pop and rock: it took me awhile to get on board with the synth-pop side of things. Especially in 1983, when we were being inundated with all kinds of synth-based bands from the other side of the ocean — the second or third or fourth British Invasion — and I felt more of a kinship with all of the homegrown guitar bands that were fighting for radio and MTV airplay.

And, in fact, had New Order not had the pedigree that they had, it’s entirely possible that I would have turned up my nose at them in the same way that I did Duran Duran, ABC, Depeche Mode and a whole flock of others. But they they had that pedigree, which I think so they were able to be either a guitar band for synth-poppers or a synth-pop band for guitar freaks.

Certain Songs #1310: New Order – “Temptation”

September 4, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: 1981-1982 EP
Year: 1982

So first off, because there at least three fucking versions of “Temptation” running around out there, I need to be very specific which version I mean.

Not the one on Substance: it was re-recorded with a flat, affectless vocal.
Not the 7″ single: it’s too short and too linear.

Nope, I’m talking about the original 12″ single, the one that was collected here in the States along with their other early post-“Ceremony” singles, and which represents a quantum leap in their music, basically setting up the rest of their career.