New Order 23 October 2012 Sony Centre, Toronto

I saw New Order last night in Toronto, my third time seeing them (1993 Chicago, and 2005 Chicago, being the other two).

I had aftershow passes to meet the band.

It was, in a word, awesome.  Both the gig - by far, the best of the gigs I've seen them play - and the aftershow.

I didn't record the gig, but did record video of Ceremony and Elegia which once I figure out how to rotate 180 degrees (for some reason my Win 7 PC plays these iPhone 5 1080p videos upside down) I will upload. 

Hooky was not missed at all; Tom Chapman was fantastic in his pseudo-Hooky role and added his own contributions to each song which just plain worked.  The band is clearly in a happy place with their current lineup/outlook, both visually and in discussion, and while I still think the songwriting of more recent times doesn't quite match that of the 80s output, perhaps the reaffirmed bond and outlook of the band/management/personnel will lead to great things again.  Bernard said they will be doing a lot of writing and recording next year... And we can't at all discount the returned Gillian influence on the songwriting.

I didn't discuss the blog or Recycle, or the Archives project, with them because it was not the appropriate setting.

Steve is the most awesome guy ever, he knew straightaway who I was and was obviously just as happy to talk to me as I was to him (clearly he knew, based on the fact that he told me so, what I'd done for the band since 2006).  And a hell of a drummer; seeing him playing acoustic drums (rather than the electronic drumset he'd been using since 1987) - and hearing the audible difference in each song - was absolutely spectacular.

It was quite something getting deeply involved in technoweenie audio engineering discussions with someone who cares, and knows what I'm talking about, with Steve.  I got a lot of questions answered that aren't really relevant to share here, and some essential background on other things that aren't really ideal to discuss in this format.  One thing that is of interest is that our Western Works reel isn't the master per se, but a dub of it (all the Cabs members and NO had reel dubs off the master, and this was likely one of those), and the Rob Gretton vocal track ("Are You Ready...") was unfinished.  He thought how we obtained the reel was awesome.

Here's your humble blogger and Bernard (who was jealous of my iPhone 5; he said his iPhone 4 was getting a bit too slow, haha)...

I am tired, it was a long night and drive back from Toronto but absolutely worth it.  Cheers!

on the New Order Archives: 15 May 1985 OZ/NZ85 Perth (stash)

A negative stunner!  See the writeup... ;)  Have at it.

on the New Order Archives: 25 August 1984 "Saturday Live" BBC Studios

What are you waiting for?

on The New Order Archives: 4 Nov 1986 The Palace, Hollywood

a scorcher!

http://archive.new-order.net/2012/08/4-november-1986-palace-hollywood-ca.html

please to enjoy!

on The New Order Archives: 17 Dec 1985 Leuven, Belgium

Just as brilliant as the others so far - ch-ch-check it out!

on The New Order Archives: 20 June 1981 Glastonbury

again, in "best ever" quality!  Go get it!

On The New Order Archives: Tolworth 12 March 1983

In "Best Ever" quality - check it out!

The New Order Archives: a new blog.

With the huge amount of exposure these "stash" tapes have received, and the large number of downloads the files have seen, clearly there is an interest in something more.

So, I've started a new blog, The New Order Archives.  The first post explains the mission statement and what to expect.  Please update your bookmarks, and keep both TPoIT and TNOA on your RSS feeds ;)

For a duration, I will crosspost new entries on TNOA over here, but only links to the posts over on TNOA.  But ultimately all "stash"-type material will only be on TNOA, with my normal non-New Order postings continuing here.

Speaking of New Order.... IFPI/Warners DMCA'ed the Run 2 unreleased mixes post.  I didn't complain this time as in this case it clearly was something the label had rights to and I had squat; I had just hoped that 20+ year old mixes, never released, would escape anyone's attention.  Then again, 6,000 downloads later since they were posted in 2009, there clearly was interest.  Ah well.

Enjoy TNOA!  I think my first post there will be new-ish masterings of the Western Works demos, hugely improved from the version I posted a million years ago.  Watch that space...

- Analog Loyalist

New Order "stash" tapes, 2012 mastering: 7 July 1984 Barcelona

New Order
Studio 54, Barcelona, Spain
7 July 1984

source: Hooky's rubbish bin (the "stash" tapes)
lineage: Master soundboard recording cassette
analogloyalist mastering August 2012

At long last I'm starting to fix up and free a stash of gigs - which first saw the light (heh) in 2004 on the long-defunct Sharing The Groove, but were essentially untouched beyond basic cleanup - that really show how brilliant New Order were in their prime in the mid-'80s.

The quick-and-dirty background:  Whilst cleaning house, a set of master New Order soundboard tapes (various mid-80s live gigs, some rehearsals, and a DAT or two from the band's 1989 US tour) was found by Hooky under the floorboards at his studio Suite 16 in Rochdale, England.  A musician friend of Hooky, who was in his employ for a duration in the early 90s, then rescued the tapes and sold them to an infamous collector in Florida, a collector not known for sharing the wealth.  In the interim, ATR (sometimes called Stash) obtained digital transfers of these tapes before they were shipped off to Florida.  ATR then shared them amongst the New Order cognoscenti, and then in 2004 we fed them to the world via Sharing The Groove.

All these gigs had their various problems as-received from the source in between Hooky and us, the least of which were sector boundary errors (which means, if burned as-is to CD, there are audible "pops" in between tracks) and all off-pitch by varying degrees.  Some were extremely muddy, and others were far too bright.  None of them were just right, but my aim is to make them so.

(The New Order "stash" gigs that were on Sharing The Groove, and various other torrent sites and blogs from 2004 onward, are all from those original 2004 releases and have not been formally mastered since, until now.)



This is easily one of my all-time favorite New Order sets.  Generally fantastic, crystalline sound; great setlist; unique segues; sequencer cockups.  It's all here.

"Ceremony" on the Retro box set live CD was sourced from this very transfer via one of the Stash transfer recipients, though obviously without my mastering (the Retro version is inexplicably slowed down, and has been "muddified" for lack of a better term).  It truly shines here and is one of my favorite performances ever of this track.  Don't let the sound quality of the Retro version scare you, at all - this completely shatters Retro's version and beats it to a bloody pulp.

"Skullcrusher" - enough said.  One of the few performances with "lyrics" - and I put that in quotes because it's basically Barney ad-libbing a lyric.  And it's wonderful, in its absurdity.  The performance is, simply, out of this world.  And "Lonesome Tonight"!  Easily a top 5 New Order track for me.

Throughout the sequenced tracks ("The Village" / "Confusion" / "Hurt" / "Blue Monday" / "Everything's Gone Green" / "Temptation") you can audibly hear problems with the sequencer.  It's cutting in and out (it's actually mostly in, it's only dropping out in a few places) of the board feed; I have no idea if this was a problem with the on-stage equipment or simply the feed into the PA.  It makes for some unique versions, and I absolutely love it.

There's a wonderful problem with the sequencer kicking off "Everything's Gone Green" in that it bleats "Blue Monday" in perfect sync with "Everything's Gone Green" until Gillian sets things right.  And the perfect segue between "EGG" and "Temptation" is done perfectly, the sequencer going for a full 12 minutes straight between the two songs.  Love it!

The original unmastered version of this gig has been spread pretty far and wide since 2004.  Trust me when I say you will want to bin it immediately upon hearing this 2012 mastering - it crushes it like a grape.  This version here is truly spectacular, and could be released tomorrow by Warners.

enjoy!

01 Your Silent Face
02 The Village
03 Ceremony
04 Skullcrusher
05 We All Stand
06 Lonesome Tonight
07 Confusion
08 Hurt
09 Age Of Consent
10 Blue Monday
11 Bernard and Hooky riffing
12 Everything's Gone Green ---->
13 Temptation

FLACs here.

Third of a series...

New Order "stash" tapes, 2012 mastering: 13 Dec 1985 Orleans

New Order
Salle du Baron, Orleans, France
13 December 1985

source: Hooky's rubbish bin (the "stash" tapes)
1st generation dub of cassette master (if not *the* master...)
analogloyalist mastering August 2012

At long last I'm starting to fix up and free a stash of gigs - which first saw the light (heh) in 2004 on the long-defunct Sharing The Groove, but were essentially untouched beyond basic cleanup - that really show how brilliant New Order were in their prime in the mid-'80s.

The quick-and-dirty background:  Whilst cleaning house, a set of New Order tapes (various mid-80s live gigs, some rehearsals, and a DAT or two from the band's 1989 US tour) was found by Hooky under the floorboards at his studio Suite 16 in Rochdale, England.  A musician friend of Hooky, who was in his employ for a duration in the early 90s, then rescued the tapes and sold them to an infamous collector in Florida, who is known for not sharing the wealth.  In the interim, ATR (sometimes called Stash) obtained 1st-generation dubs of these tapes before they were shipped off to Florida.  ATR then shared them amongst the New Order cognoscenti, and then in 2004 we fed them to the world via Sharing The Groove.

All these gigs had their various problems as-received from the source in between Hooky and us, the least of which were sector boundary errors (which means, if burned as-is to CD, there are audible "pops" in between tracks) and all off-pitch by varying degrees.  Some were extremely muddy, and others were far too bright.  None of them were just right, but my aim is to make them so. 

(The New Order "stash" gigs that were on Sharing The Groove, and various other torrent sites and blogs from 2004 onward, are all from those original 2004 releases and have not been formally mastered since, until now.)

This is the second of two French gigs sourced from the Stash.  The first being Rennes; it's not the first to be posted here because Rennes needs quite a bit more TLC than most of these sets.  Regardless, this Orleans set is easily one hour of my favorite New Order, ever.

Here, the band visits two songs that were not long for this world; "Hurt" only saw one more airing after this, and "ICB" went to its lonely place forevermore after this night.  Which is a shame; I love "ICB" and until Hooky's bass packs it in midway, it's well on its way to "classic track" status.

The rest of the gig is no shambles either, though there are a few whoppers in "She's Lost Control" and it's no wonder they don't revisit this song again until New Order Mk. III in 2001/2002.  "In A Lonely Place" cuts where the soundboard tape ran out / at the tape flip spot.  Which is a shame, it was going to be brilliant based on the 1:15 that made it.

"Elegia" sends chills up my spine every time I hear it.  This is easily the best live version I've ever heard.

The original unmastered version of this gig has been spread pretty far and wide since 2004.  Trust me when I say you will want to bin it immediately upon hearing this 2012 mastering - it crushes it like a grape.  This version here is truly spectacular, and could be released tomorrow by Warners.

enjoy!

01 - Elegia
02 - The Perfect Kiss
03 - Weirdo
04 - Love Vigilantes
05 - Hurt
06 - Sooner Than You Think
07 - ICB
08 - This Time Of Night
09 - In A Lonely Place (detail)
10 - She's Lost Control
11 - Blue Monday

FLACs here.

Second of a series...

New Order "stash" tapes, 2012 mastering: 7 Dec 1985 Slough

New Order
Fulcrum Centre, Slough
7 December 1985

source: Hooky's rubbish bin (the "stash" tapes)
1st generation dub of cassette master
analogloyalist mastering August 2012

At long last I'm starting to fix up and free a stash of gigs - which first saw the light (heh) in 2004 on the long-defunct Sharing The Groove, but were essentially untouched beyond basic cleanup - that really show how brilliant New Order were in their prime in the mid-'80s.

The quick-and-dirty background:  Whilst cleaning house, a set of New Order tapes (various mid-80s live gigs, some rehearsals, and a DAT or two from the band's 1989 US tour) was found by Hooky under the floorboards at his studio Suite 16 in Rochdale, England.  A musician friend of Hooky, who was in his employ for a duration in the early 90s, then rescued the tapes and sold them to an infamous collector in Florida, who is known for not sharing the wealth.  In the interim, ATR (sometimes called Stash) obtained 1st-generation dubs of these tapes before they were shipped off to Florida.  ATR then shared them amongst the New Order cognoscenti, and then in 2004 we fed them to the world via Sharing The Groove.

All these gigs had their various problems as-received from the source in between Hooky and us, the least of which were sector boundary errors (which means, if burned as-is to CD, there are audible "pops" in between tracks) and all off-pitch by varying degrees.  Some were extremely muddy, and others were far too bright.  None of them were just right, but my aim is to make them so. 

(The New Order "stash" gigs that were on Sharing The Groove, and various other torrent sites and blogs from 2004 onward, are all from those original 2004 releases and have not been formally mastered since, until now.)

With this set, we see the band in fine form in metropolitan London.  Two notables about this gig:

1) "This Time Of Night" from this gig was shortlisted for the live CD in the Retro box set, and this version (unmastered, presumably) appeared on very early track sheets (and working CD-Rs during compilation).  Bobby Gillespie loved it but Bernard had it binned for another track instead (I forget which).

2) "She's Lost Control" is debuted by New Order.  This period of New Order gigging is weird; it's obvious they were in a bit of a state because they played a handful of Joy Division tracks here in December 1985 to the extent they'd never done before, and wouldn't do so again until 1998.  They unearthed "She's Lost Control", "Atmosphere", and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" during this period.

The original unmastered version has been spread pretty far and wide since 2004.  Trust me when I say you will want to bin it immediately upon hearing this 2012 mastering - it crushes it like a grape.  This set here is easily a candidate for official release (barring the fades/cuts on the original cassette board master), should the band re-activate their once-planned-subsequently-binned live album project.

enjoy!

01 State Of The Nation (fades in)
02 Blue Monday
03 The Village
04 This Time Of Night
05 Subculture
06 Thieves Like Us
07 Confusion
08 Weirdo
09 Ceremony (cuts in)
10 Temptation
11 She's Lost Control
12 The Perfect Kiss

FLACs here.

First of a series...

dub: New Order 22 June 1982 Milan (2010 remaster)

And the gravy train continues.

As I clean up my hard drives, and poke through the big pile of CD/DVD-R's, I come across stuff. Sometimes I refile it, sometimes I put it in the "interesting, needs further thought" pile, and sometimes it goes straight into the blogpile, occasionally after some further audio mastering work.

Of late New Order soundboards keep edgeing their way into the blogpile. I push them out but you know, they're persistent little fuckers.

Perhaps it's to counterbalance Steve Albini. Hey! Albini's first real band recorded a session with legendary Joy Division and early New Order producer Martin Hannett, so the connection's not that far removed (although it has to be said that Hannett recorded Stations, Albini's band before Big Black, shortly after Albini left the band....).



Like an earworm, this particular gig featured today can't get out of my head.

One of the band's most legendary bootlegs, this June 22, 1982 soundboard recording from the Rolling Stone in Milan, Italy finds the band at perhaps their dubbiest (if that's a word, if not, I'm inventing it!). The dub effects are all over the map here, as if their sound guy had Lee "Scratch" Perry in one ear and the band's output in another - while on a load of draw on top of it all. About the only thing missing is Jah Wobble's throbbing deep lowfield bass. It's simply incredible. Not to mention the song selection is nothing short of stellar as well.

The highlight is their only known take on Sparks' "When I'm With You", featuring sequencers going haywire at the end (and more dub!) and Bernard moaning about their choice of encores.

Lyrical highlights: 2:04 "Thought this was in C!"; 2:20 "Never feel like feedback when I'm with you" to the sounds of howling feedback in the mix; 3:37 "This is why we don't do encores"; 3:55 "This is a bad idea". Then we get sequenced snippets of "The Village" and, at 10:45 as things drunkenly stumble to a close, a blast of Hooky playing the "Ceremony" bassline.

This also features one of the band's rare three-song segues, a stunning electroacoustic workout through 586->Temptation->Everything's Gone Green lasting nearly 18:35, all nonstop. Amazing.

Punters out there who have this gig may recall that "Everything's Gone Green" has a dropout at around 2:30 or thereabouts, losing nearly an entire vocal line (which would be about where the tape flip would be if it were recorded on a C-90 cassette). That has been fixed on this version. Punters may also recall that "When I'm With You" was missing the first couple seconds at the intro, which has also been fixed here.

This is the definitive version of this gig, so I highly suggest everyone - even if you only remotely care for New Order - download it. It's probably my favorite gig of this era as it's so transitional and clearly the band is struggling with their direction (do we continue the Joy Division sound, or branch out even further into this 586/Temptation/Everything's Gone Green electro motif, or scratch it all and listen to PiL's Metal Box for inspiration?). Of course we know how it would resolve, but it's a fascinating document of a band clearly struggling with their identity.

And as is becoming our trademark, it's featured in lossless FLAC for her pleasure ;)

NEW ORDER
22 June 1982
The Rolling Stone, Milan, Italy
special to thepowerofindependenttrucking.blogspot.com

01 Truth (fades in)
02 Dreams Never End
03 Chosen Time
04 ICB
05 Leave Me Alone
06 Denial
07 Procession
08 586 ->
09 <- Temptation ->
10 <- Everything's Gone Green
11 When I'm With You

Grab it here!

credit for artwork: Species

concert: New Order 16 June 1989 Irvine, CA *remastered*

So the internets are abuzz lately with talk of a newly-discovered Joy Division rehearsal tape floating around, featuring not one but five full-length takes on "In A Lonely Place" - the last song written by the band prior to Ian's suicide, and closing with the verse beginning with "Hangman looks round as he waits / Cord stretches tight, then it breaks...". In 1997 this song was released on the Heart and Soul box set, but ending just prior to the final verse (sensitivity reasons to his surviving family, perhaps?). So it would be great to finally hear the long-rumored full-length variant, alas the set has yet to surface publicly on the internets so we will just have to wait.



In the meantime, we move forward. 10 years from last week's post, and 20 years in the past. According to New Order bassist Hooky, the band first died in the afternoon of today's featured gig, when Bernard announced to the group that he was starting Electronic (his project with Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr) and no longer wished to carry on with New Order. Seeing as how this was at the near beginning of that summer's American tour on the back of their 5th LP Technique, the band's sets from this point forward were those of a group in their death throes - and nobody outside the band knew it.

Which may account for the unique setlist of this June 16, 1989 Irvine Meadows Ampitheatre, Irvine, CA gig. "Age of Consent" and "All Day Long" see rare airings - it was the next-to-last-ever "Age of Consent", and the last-ever "All Day Long". Maybe Bernard was throwing Hooky a bone with "Age of Consent"?

This actual recording, the mastered version presented here, was considered for release recently by the band and ultimately rejected for feelings of sounding too "clinical" - it's too much of a pristine, sterile soundboard or something like that. Which is why I love it so - it's perhaps the best pure soundboard recording of this band I've ever heard, with a stunning clarity and depth that's got to be heard. It's also got perhaps my favorite live versions of "Your Silent Face" and "Temptation", at least for modern-day performances.

Sadly Bernard introduces the gig dedicating the set to Echo and the Bunnymen drummer Pete deFreitas, who died the day before. The two bands were good friends with each other and they toured the States in summer 1987 as co-headliners.

This gig was ultimately sourced from a DAT liberated from the band's archives by persons affiliated with Hooky. Interestingly enough, the same DAT liberated from Hooky shows signs of editing the between-song bits, perhaps to make the gig fit on a 74-minute CD? So this either was considered for release way back in the day, as well as more recently, or perhaps Hooky just wanted it edited down so he could throw it in his car/Discman for private listening? We'll never know.

This was available on various filesharing sites, but not in the mastering you find here. So if you had a previous copy of this gig, I'd still suggest grabbing this version. It's that much better.

NEW ORDER
16 June 1989 Irvine Meadows Ampitheatre, Irvine, CA
remastered and EQ'ed from the band's leaked master soundboard DAT



01 intro, dedication to Pete deFreitas
02 Ceremony
03 True Faith
04 Age of Consent
05 Dream Attack
06 All The Way
07 Mr Disco
08 Your Silent Face
09 Vanishing Point
10 Round & Round
11 Temptation
12 Bizarre Love Triangle
13 The Perfect Kiss
14 All Day Long
15 Bernard jamming
16 Fine Time

Grab it here, lossless FLAC split across 5 RAR files

got ready: New Order Get Ready *mastered* Premix

Since everybody was nice enough, here's the exclusive mastered version of the Get Ready Premix tracks, mastered by yours truly. I left the tracklisting the same as on the unmastered leak, but of course feel free to assemble your own sequence if you wish!



What did I do?

First, these tracks were, for the most part, not properly EQ'ed. The worst was "Runwild [Primitive Notion]", it really suffered from heavily overcooked mids, and sounded as if somebody tossed a blanket on the speakers. The other tracks all needed some fresh EQ as well, which I've done. It sounds loads better, professional even!

Second, I compromised a bit and applied a light touch of mastering compression. And I mean light. The original leak was rather quiet sounding, and the mastered official release was MUCH too brickwalled. This version here is definitely neither, it's really a nice touch.

Third, I repaired the track intros as I suspect the watermarking used on the original Warners leak did things to the song intros. (This was also done on the version I posted last week.) Many of the intros were cut off, and while my source did do a nice job fixing it initially, I've made it all seamless and had I not told you that every song intro is a patch job (and I mean the first 5 seconds or so), you would never have known it.

I daresay that with a bit of judicious editing, this variant could really blow the official release out of the water. It's missing "Rock The Shack" (addition by subtraction at its finest!), and while a couple of the tracks do begin to overstay their welcome in that some of middle or ending bits might go on a tad too long, I much prefer this version to the final release. Not that "Field" or "Run This River Dry" make the record, but I just prefer these versions more than the final mastering as released by Warners.

Sequence-wise I'm not sure if I'd have done it different than the official release did. I think the sequence on the final release does work, and I like how it opens with the barnstormer "Crystal" and ends with the gently-into-the-good-night vibes of "Run Wild", but perhaps I'd have moved up "Primitive Notion" in the final sequence and moved down "Vicious Streak". Or not.

The CD inner pictured above is the closest thing I can find online for this actual product timing-wise. The only difference is "Crystal" in our version has moved up from the 7th track to the 4th, presumably Warners were catching on to its superiority as an opening track.

So do enjoy - and I'm making one last attempt at Mediafire. I hate Rapidshare and for whatever reason I can't get my uploads to Megaupload to work.

One last bit. I know that pre-mastering versions of Waiting For The Sirens' Call are out there and if anybody has it lossless I would love to get my mastering hands on it! Imagine "Jetstream" pre-Ana Matronic for starters...

- - - - -

NEW ORDER GET READY *MASTERED* PREMIX
mastered by thepowerofindependenttrucking.blogspot.com



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]

Lossless FLAC again, split across 4 RAR files as usual...

Mediafire folder with the links!

enjoy...

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?

Take a gander over that way ----->

at the Recycle blog.



£50 Note and brunorepublic have done a yeoman's job in assembling the best New Order package ever - and it's all been a fan's project.

They've accomplished what the record company has abysmally failed - a comprehensive, beautiful, chronological assemblage of this terrific singles band's many fantastic singles. Tracked down elusive B-sides, 7-inch promo edits, the works. And it's all been done with the most amazing care for sound it truly puts Warners to shame (ref: the CD2 materials from the recent "Collector's Edition" New Order 2xCD packages). Twenty - 20 - CDs of pristine, amazing, groundbreaking music.

I've never heard 99.9 percent of the tracks they've assembled sound better than what they've done.

And the artwork - oh the artwork! Lovingly assembled mini-LP sleeves either meticulously scanned from mint 7"/12" sleeves, or recreated to be identical to the original, with directions (on the Recycle blog flickr account) for assembly - beautiful, beautiful stuff.

They're only missing one final Factory-era single in the batch, the last New Order release on Factory, "World in Motion" - and I can hear the world salivating at that one ;) Nevertheless it too will be included.

So in lieu of enjoying my latest offering, scoot on over there ----> and start downloading. You may not like all the material - "Sub-Culture" sounds just as vile as it did 24 years ago - but at least it's pristine-sounding vile ;)

New Order: Part 2 of a series, 1985-1989

Last week we gave ourselves a good hit of early New Order, finding the band transitioning from the shadows of Joy Division to electro-indie- rock trendsetters.

This week, Part II of the PoIT's New Order MegaSubstance MegaSpectacular, we become megastars.



Bernard Sumner realized he didn't have to be so dramatic and Peter Hook started getting even more creative and melodic on bass. Steve Morris became the human drum machine and Gillian Gilbert brought even more electro flourishes to the mix.

They also didn't forget their roots as a guitar band.

We start the proceedings with a song that probably should have gone in last week's batch (a stunning "Skullcrusher" live from Barcelona, Spain in July 1984) but for two reasons it's here in this batch: 1) I forgot to put it in last week, and 2) the song did end up seeing release as an instrumental track in 1987.

Many of the following have either never been released officially on CD or have found themselves bastardized in order to fit on existing compilations (hello "The Perfect Kiss" and shouts to "Shellshock"). Other tracks ("Let's Go") have NEVER been heard in this form except on bootleg, and yet others ("The Happy One") exist in snippet-form only.

So onward we proceed from 1985 through 1989, the last year New Order could safely call themselves a true indie band.

NEW ORDER "I'm not grown up and I'm not a boy..." 1985-1989, anthologized

01 Skullcrusher (with lyrics, 7 Jul 1984 Studio 54, Barcelona, Spain)
02 Let's Go (unreleased original 1985 vocal)
03 The Perfect Kiss (12 inch complete version)
04 Love Vigilantes
05 This Time Of Night
06 Sunrise
07 Elegia
08 Sooner Than You Think
09 Shellshock (12 inch complete version)
10 Weirdo
11 As It Is When It Was
12 Broken Promise
13 Way Of Life
14 Bizarre Love Triangle
15 All Day Long
16 Every Little Counts
17 True Faith (The Morning Sun extended remix)
18 1963
19 Paradise (remix) ***** see below!
19 Temptation '87
20 Salvation Theme
21 Touched By The Hand Of God (early version)
22 Sputnik
23 Don't Do It
24 Fine Time
25 All The Way
26 Love Less
27 Guilty Partner
28 Run
29 Vanishing Point
30 Dream Attack
31 Round & Round (7 inch mix)
32 Run² (unreleased instrumental mix)
33 MTO
34 MTO minus mix
35 The Happy One (full version re-assembly)

Four RAR files this time, as usual, you must download each one!

Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV

***** I forgot to include 19 Paradise (remix) in the fileset so please grab it here. It should still sort correctly but yes, there will be two Track 19's. I think everyone will be OK with this ;)

(note - if having trouble extracting "Temptation '87", download that track only here .... and if you're having problems with "Guilty Partner" that can be downloaded here.)

enjoy!

New Order: Part 1 of a series, 1980-1984

New Order has - for over 20 years - been amongst my most favorite groups ever. For 15 or so years they made music that served as the soundtrack to my life, more often than not reaching perfection (or pretty damn close to it) with everything they did.

They had a few clunkers ("Sub-Culture" 12-inch mix, anyone?) but the true best of New Order is among the best music EVER from ANY artist ANY era. Not bad for a bunch of self-taught Salford/Macclesfield, UK misfits.



The history of the band can be found all over the internets so I shall not rehash it here. What I will be doing, however, over a series of posts, is compile my favorite tracks into the SuperFan's MegaSubstance MegaBest Of or what-have-you. The band has been anthologized over a ridiculous number of compilations and quite a few tracks are repeated across releases, while deep catalog tracks - as good as any single they released - are continuously ignored.

Our first selection features their best works from the 1980-1984 era - the era that served as the "hey, we used to be Joy Division" bridging to the "hey, I think we're onto something with this weird dance/rock/indie hybrid thing" timeframe, before they became megastars. This era saw the band creep ever so hesitantly out of the Joy Division shadow, suddenly becoming trendsetters in discos, and then rediscovering guitars again.

So onward.

NEW ORDER "Seems like I've been here before..."
1980-1984, anthologized

01 Ceremony (original 3-piece version, recorded Sept. 1980)
02 In A Lonely Place (7-inch edit, different from Substance version)
03 Ceremony (re-recorded late 1980 with Gillian Gilbert on board)
04 Procession
05 Everything's Gone Green (7-inch version)
06 Dreams Never End (Jan. 1981 Peel Session)
07 ICB (Jan. 1981 Peel Session)
08 Cries and Whispers
09 Mesh
10 Truth (mix candidate #1, Hannett)
11 Doubts Even Here
12 Denial
13 Temptation (7-inch version)
14 Hurt (7-inch version)
15 Temptation (12-inch version)
16 586 (June 1982 Peel Session)
17 Too Late
18 Blue Monday (rare 7-inch edit)
19 Age of Consent
20 The Village
21 Your Silent Face
22 Ultraviolence
23 Ecstasy
24 Leave Me Alone
25 Confusion (7-inch promo edit)
26 Thieves Like Us (7-inch promo edit)
27 Lonesome Tonight
28 Murder

Nothing whatsoever taken from the abysmally-mastered 2005 compilation Singles, and many taken from mint vinyl copies.

Three RAR's as usual, gotta grab 'em all of course...

Part I / Part II / Part III

enjoy!

unplugged: New Order's Bernard Sumner

In 2007 legendary bassist Peter Hook announced he was leaving New Order, leaving singer/guitarist Bernard Sumner and drummer Steve Morris in the lurch. No reason ever was given.

After some hemming-and-hawing over the New Order name, word escaped that Sumner and Morris had a new project called Bad Lieutenant and would be writing/releasing new music under that name. People said "ummm, OK".

In March 2009 Sky Arts in the UK featured Bernard Sumner on their recurring series "Songbook" that blends MTV/VH1's "Storytellers" and "Unplugged" series into a narrative interview with several acoustic performances interspersed.



Bernard, backed by guitarists Phil Cunningham and Jake Evans, performed 4 tracks "unplugged" - just acoustic guitars and Bernard's legendary voice.

That's not that impressive in and of itself - the thought of New Order tracks unplugged just doesn't really jibe, if you know what I mean - but it turns out Bernard turned in one of his most inspired performances ever.

Not only that, but it was the first public airing of a Bad Lieutenant track, which I'll get to shortly.

What was played? Well, you've come to the right place!

1) "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (Joy Division, 1979)
High-bitrate, high-quality mp3

Three acoustic guitars, no "whooping" from Bernard. Perhaps the best non-Joy Division performance of this song, ever. Really really good performance, perfectly suited for Bernard in this interpretation.

High-quality YouTube footage

- - -

2) "Bizarre Love Triangle" (New Order, 1986)
High-bitrate, high-quality mp3

Oddly I'd never imagined this song in an acoustic setting, but it works, and it's fantastic. Of course I'm discounting Frente!'s version but I don't really count that....

High-quality YouTube footage

- - -

3) "Getting Away With It" (Electronic, 1989)
High-bitrate, high-quality mp3

The debut Electronic single (the side project that Bernard started with Johnny Marr in the late 1980s), never before heard in an acoustic setting. Again, a stellar performance, and it really gets to the root of the melody. And when Jake comes in with a fairly spot-on Johnny Marr imitation in the solo, it's really something else.... I would have to say this is the best version of this song I've EVER heard, no question.

High-quality YouTube footage

- - -

4) "Sink Or Swim" (Bad Lieutenant, 2009)
High-bitrate, high-quality mp3

The first public airing of this brand-new Bad Lieutenant track, this is REALLY good. Interestingly, the main guitar motif suggests a possible Peter Hook bassline, which makes this even more poignant. Stellar, stellar stuff, and a fantastic teaser for any further upcoming efforts....

High-quality YouTube footage

- - -

On YouTube you can also find the interview segments, but I'll leave that for you guys to get. I just wanted to feature the music... ;)

enjoy!

New Order - Western Works demos followup

Now that the dust has settled a bit from this blog's freeing of the Western Works demos taken from the master reel, I thought it appropriate to discuss this a bit further.

There were quite a few fans who made this possible - I can't thank them all, because of course everybody wishes to remain anonymous, but were it not for the generosity of many, this would likely have ended up in the hands of a notorious bootlegger who would not have seen to it's proper care and feeding.

It's been quite apparent from my logs that this post has been shared worldwide. While I'm grateful for the exposure, please leave a comment and let me know what you think!

The band is aware of this material's existence in the wild.

Those who doubted about New Order's involvement in the NO/Cabs jam "Are You Ready Are You Ready Are You Ready For This?" - doubt no further. A member of New Order - who was of course there at the time, he was in the band! - was the direct, to me, source of this information, not secondhand or thirdhand.

When this bunch of fans obtained the reel, this track was completely unknown and it was just pure speculation at the time that it was a Cabs/NO jam. I had this New Order member identify it for me - it was he who revealed its title to me - and this same member also confirmed the instrumentation:

Hooky - bass
Bernard - guitar (and "whooping" in the background)
Steve - Simmons drums, and the same Dr Rhythm drum machine used on Truth
Rob Gretton - vocals
various Cabs - sonic alterations

This member also stated there was another collaboration recorded at the time, which was a bit more classic New Order-y in sound, but alas this appears to have been lost in the mists of time. It was not on the reel as purchased off eBay.

You may be of course asking how the auction win came about.

The reel was advertised as being rescued in a Chorlton charity shop, and was described as containing "unreleased" Joy Division mixes, specifically "She's Lost Control" and "Atmosphere". Alas, neither are unreleased mixes - the reel contained test pressing vinyl captures of the FACUS2 "She's Lost Control" b/w "Atmosphere" 12" single, and a transfer of the Sordide Sentimental 7" "Atmosphere", presumably for comparison sake. Nothing JD on the reel was unreleased, and in fact both were of fairly poor quality for a vinyl transfer to reel. Not listed on the reel, and not mentioned in the auction description, was the New Order material.

On the reverse side of the reel - labeled "!SBAC" - are 4 Cabaret Voltaire tracks that eventually saw release in the early 1980s. You would have needed a 4-track reel-to-reel machine to play these properly, it's obvious that neither New Order nor the eBay seller didn't have such a machine, at least at the time.

Here are photos of the reel itself...

Side 1



(detail)



and Side 2



(detail)



Note how Side 1 starts with "Cabaret Volt. Demos" - I'm wondering if this was New Order's shorthand for the Western Works session.

And here's some detail on the Cabs material on Side 2, the "!SBAC"-labeled side:

I have identified the 4 Cabs tracks on the reel.

They are:
1. Doubled Delivery
2. Venusian Animals
3. The Outer Limits
4. She Loved You

These are the B side of the Industrial Records cassette, IRC-35 Cabaret Voltaire 1974-1976. There is also a later Mute Grey Area CD release.

The original cassette was released by Industrial in early 1981, so this fits into the time frame and seems to point to Chris Watson as the original source.

Please be advised we've no info if Watson was indeed the source or not, that was just pure speculation.

If you only had a 2-track reel machine and attempted to play Side 2, it would play backwards - hence the label being backwards. The labeler knew it was Cabs material but couldn't play it back properly.

So please discuss!