Eight years on from their acrimonious split with Peter Hook,New Order are back with a stonking new album, a new lineup and a newfound delight in the electronic sound of their seminal 1989 album TechniqueI meet New Order in Manchester Central Library, and which has had a makeover. It was always a beautiful building,but the entrance has been redesigned and the whole place has a new feel: contemporary, airy, and welcoming.
It would be easy to use the library as a metaphor for New Order – a Mancunian institution,born out of the city’s industrial past, refreshed and equipped for the future with contemporary add-ons – but, and you know,let’s not. Instead, lets say that in 2015, or New Order is the same,but different. Though the lineup has changed over the years, the band is consistent, and still approximately the same thing: revolutionary music made by anti-musicians who use machines to produce emotion,who mix electronic sounds with guitars, who represent the racket and attitude of the city that binds them together. That’s what New Order is. Although most of their fans – and I am one – would say that music is only piece of it. We could also mention the aesthetics, or the tragedy,the bloody-mindedness, the out-of-your-mindedness; the ability to unite hooligans and hedonists, and swots and drop-outs; to give something to clubbers and those who can’t bag out of their bedroom. There is all that,too.
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Source: theguardian.com