Sunday, November 29, 2009

getting ready: New Order Get Ready sessions

In August 1993 (at the Reading Festival) New Order played their final gig of the Republic tour, and disappeared. With Bernard saying to Hooky that if they never see each other again it would be a good day, nobody expected the band to work together ever again. Each had their own side projects, some more successful than others (though one wished The Other Two saw the same sort of success Hooky had with Monaco, and Bernard with Electronic), and each member was moving on with their lives.



Then the offers to reform for the UK festival circuit became too big to ignore. With late, loved manager Rob Gretton convening the members in January 1998, they finally agreed to give it another go after realizing the differences they had with each other had faded as the years had passed. With no firm committment other than a series of gigs and a "let's see how it goes" attitude, it was of great interest to learn in 1999 that the band was writing and recording a comeback album.

The first fruit of this renewed partnership was the lone track "Brutal", released in 2000 on the soundtrack to the Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle The Beach. Part of these sessions were devoted to other new material, though, with at least (what became) "60 MPH" and "Turn My Way" seeing primitive airings.

Then they joined up with producer Steve Osborne and recorded what would become the LP Get Ready, and some B-sides to go with it. Periodically, tracks from these sessions would wind their way to the record company, with some (watermarked) listening copies making their way out of the studio into the public. The LP eventually saw release in fall 2001, however, pre-mastering copies did exist in the wild and the differences - not only in the mastering, but some of the recordings themselves - are striking.

Featured today is the earliest-known leak of the Get Ready sessions. Dating from at least early 2001 (if not earlier), these tracks are all pre-mastering and in virtually all cases longer than the final released variants. It's almost as if Warners/London went to producer Osborne after these and said "OK Steve, tighten them up and then let's talk!". While nothing would be considered "shocking" per-se, at the very least the tracks are different enough (different recordings, different synth lines, different vocals, etc) to be very interesting in their own right, and IMHO the album - as featured in the configuration presented here, which was the same configuration on the Warners/London CD leak - would have been even better than what eventually was released. You know, no "Rock The Shack" here, etc. The final LP was pretty good - if this, however, was instead released as the resulting LP, it'd have really been spectacular.

So enjoy! These are presented basically warts-and-all, pre-mastering. It's not undergone any mastering compression as the final LP did, and it's not been EQ'ed properly. Maybe if you're all nice enough I'll put out there my own release-ready mastering of these tracks, which I've done for myself, as it shits all over the version presented today. For posterity's sake however I've chosen to initially present these as they were given to (or leaked from) the label.

The tracks are mostly working titles and I've titled them as best can be determined from the various pre-release and leak tracklistings that do exist on the Internets.

As a special bonus, I've also included tracks for a companion CD that I've accumulated over the years, tracks - for the most part unreleased - which mark various 1998-2001 recording ideas and, most curiously, the theme from Mission Impossible which they recorded in 1999 for the Tom Cruise movie. Alas it was never used and most people don't even know the band had attempted it! Also in the companion set is a pre-Billy Corgan version of "Turn My Way" for all the haters who disliked the album version because of Billy's presence on it... (which I don't understand, because IMHO "Turn My Way" is the best track on the LP!)

All presented as lossless FLAC - for most of this material, the first time ever anywhere, at least non-MP3!



NEW ORDER GET READY PREMIX
Unmastered and not final EQ

01 60 MPH (mix 2)
02 Runwild (mix 3) [Primitive Notion]
03 Dream On (original mix) [Close Range]
04 Crystal
05 Freefall (mix 2) [Someone Like You]
06 Slow Jam
07 Shipwreck (mix 2) [Turn My Way]
08 Vicious Streak (mix 3)
09 Field (mix 1 vox up) [Player In The League]
10 Run This River Dry (recall from submix) [Sabotage]
11 Full Circle (mix 2) [Run Wild]

- -

NEW ORDER GET READY PREMIX COMPANION
mastered by thepowerofindependenttrucking.blogspot.com

01 Beach Demo #1 ["Brutal" instrumental]
02 Beach Demo #2 ["60 MPH" original version]
03 Beach Demo #3 ["Mission Impossible" theme]
04 Brutal (Rollo EQ'ed as Master 1 but vox down)
05 Brutal (Rollo EQ'ed as Master 2)
06 Brutal (Rollo EQ'ed as Master 1)
07 Brutal (monitor mix 9/29/1999)
08 Brutal (monitor mix Rollo restructure 9/30/1999)
09 60 MPH (monitor mix Rollo demo mix)
10 Shipwreck Of A Broken Man ["Turn My Way", no Billy Corgan]
11 Temptation '98 (Albert Square Manc 8/21/1998 louder vocal mix)
12 60 MPH (Kahne v2 edit)
13 60 MPH (Osborne monitor mix)
14 Crystal (Osborne monitor mix, very different!)

9 chunks of RAR'ed FLAC goodness, you have to download each part - a pain, I know, but what a payoff!

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
"Slow Jam" and "60 MPH Rollo monitor mix" here in case you were unable to extract from the main fileset.
And if you still get errors on Slow Jam, get it here by itself.

Getting fed up with mediafire so I will have to seek out alternative hosting solutions. Any of my readers care to share storage space?

32 comments:

  1. many thanks for posting this one.
    really enjoying listening to these songs.
    any news on parts 3&4 of the anthology?
    best wishes.
    Mr C.

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  2. free: No news on the anthology. Strangely had I put together the next batch of the anthology prior to this post, my pickings from this era would be different. Assembling this has allowed me the chance to give a critical listening to 99-01 NO that I've not done in years, and it's caused me to reevaluate some longtime thoughts I've had about this era...

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  3. Okay thanks for the update.
    Have been listening to parts 1 & 2 a lot!
    They are excellent.
    I look forward to sometime soon hearing part 3.
    Maybe 2010 for both parts i imagine?
    As you stae 99 to 01 needs a careful picking over, something not to be rushed...
    Many thanks again for all the New Order posts, they are much appreciated.
    Also I have been collecting all the downoloads done by £50, which are quite simply stunning.
    Puts the labels to shame!!
    Keep up the excellent blogging.
    Best Wishes,
    Mr C.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Thanks so much but I keep getting corrupt file messages while extracting two tracks - slow jam and 60mph Rollo Monitor Mix Demo. Is it just me? I've redownloaded twice now. Cheers.

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  6. i got those 2 corrupt as well.
    slow jam & 60 MPH Rollo Mix.
    any chance putting these 2 in a seperate rar please?
    apart from those 2 all excellent am enjoying them as i type...
    Thanks.
    Mr C.

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  7. this is fantastic. I think I prefer some of these versions to the release!

    Bit of a problem though with Slow Jam and 60mph rollo mix so I'd be really grateful if you would post them up again.

    Big, big thanks

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  8. Fantastic! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE share your remastered versions!

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  9. Fantastic!! Neverthesless some files are corrupted. I tried to extract them on Mac, and on Windows PC with both Winzip et Win RAR.... Can you repost please?

    Thanks

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  10. same problem with the same files here

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  11. OK kids, I've uploaded the two problem files as their own zipfile here and posted the same link into the main post. Enjoy!

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  12. i still get an error with this new zip. been listening and it's great stuff. thanks!

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  13. Slow Jam. Every new zip I upload downloads corruptly and I'm getting fed up with Mediafire. So I think I'll be looking for a new hosting service after this.

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  14. Excellent. Thanks so much for this. I'd love to hear your mastered version - I'm nice enough.

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  15. Thanks for the companion disc! I can finally listen to Turn My Way without baldy fuck face ruining the track.

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  16. i have a quick question


    here to stay was suppsed ot be on get ready correct

    but here in the us i can only find 1 mix of it (the felix housecat remix)

    wondering how many other mixes of it there are if they stil can be found only major hole in my
    discogprahy (well that and the weatherall remixes of regret)

    now due to the fact it was pressed on 2 cds and both are out of print

    wonder if your gonna put it up or know where to find it

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  17. Wow, this is great stuff. Can't thank you enough. If Mediafire is not working well why not set up a donations function on the site so an alternate host could be used? With super rare NO music like this and the Run 2 remixes on offer I'd gladly pay up. Just a thought.

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  18. I too can't wait to hear this. I was only able to open up RARs parts 1 and 2; the rest would not open due to the corrupt part 3 (the remaining files would not open because of that error). If anyone could repost all of these tracks (perhaps through Megaupload, Rapidshare, or elsewhere?) it would be extremely appreciated.

    Perhaps each song needs to be its own independent file, rather than a component of a larger 9-part collection that must be uncompressed as a whole to work?

    Analog Loyalist, I too (like Bobinot) be happy to donate to help defray any costs to host this music elsewhere, just to be able to hear it (and ensure other fans can as well. These songs are among the Holy Grails of N.O. music, and they need to be heard.

    Thanks for all your effort. It is appreciated.

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  19. Working on uploading the batch to megaupload. Watch this space... And thanks everyone for the offers so far - at this point I hope they're not necessary as I don't want to take a penny for what I'm doing.

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  20. Thank you very much. I had to download all of the various slowjam attempts. Interestingly, the zipfile claimed the correct CRC checksum should have been 0ac6d6d9, the .rar set claimed it should be DD666939 and the .flac on it's own summed to bde55757 in the end. No idea which of any of those are corrupted :)

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  21. This great set is testament to the high spirits of the band members back in the days when they were working together anew after the post-1993 hiatus. Many thanks!

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  22. Just posted the mastered version - reload the blog!

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  23. I HAVE to get the mastered version now, but wanted to comment on this version:

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  24. this is some of the best music i have heard all year!

    seriously, New Order should have put this out all raw like this... far more interesting. More electro and New Ordery...

    i like being able to hear all the synths going on.

    and the lyrics are mixed clearer, more immediate.


    great stuff, thank you!

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  25. Hi thanks for what you do here,
    me too i keep getting a corrupted slow jam file even after you uploaded the rar for the two files.
    I hope you can fix everything at all just to complete the PreMix.
    have you a relationship with a New Order Member? :-)
    How can you get such those goodies?
    anyway just better for all of us, NO fans
    Thanks
    Bye
    Fab from Italy

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  26. ARGH! I can't get part 9 to dl from mediafire. Was able to get everything else!

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  27. Hi, Analog Loyalist:

    Can you (or someone) please repost the 60 MPH Monitor Mix Rollo Demo Mix as its own download? it's the only one I was unable to get.

    Thank you?

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  28. I cant believe I didnt run into this earlier! A BIG thank you for putting this up! You just made Get Ready and Brutal particularly more appreciated!

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  29. I cant believe I didnt run into this earlier! A BIG thank you for putting this up! You just made Get Ready and Brutal particularly more appreciated!

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  30. Is there anyway to still get this ???? anyone

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