The new, oddly-titled live album from New Order drops today. It is called ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes .. and it's out via Mute Records. The release is the record of a 2017 performance at the old Granada TV studios, where at least two of these folks made their debut as half of Joy Division 40-some years ago. The performance, in collaboration with visual artist Liam Gillick and arranger Joe Duddell, was designed to allow the legendary band -- now Bernard Sumner (vocals, guitar, etc.), Phil Cunningham (guitar), Tom Chapman (bass), Stephen Morris (drums, etc.) and Gillian Gilbert (keyboards and loads more) -- the space to deconstruct a dozen or so of their best-known tunes. "Deconstruct" is a loaded term, and it usually leads to something dire happening, but I'm happy to report that this is the rare sort of live album that succeeds more than it fails.
Opening with an instrumental run at the rare "Times Change" from the regrettable (but "Regret"-containing) Republic (1993), it's clear that the band are intent on at least trying to strip things back and start over. And while some songs here, like a shimmering "Bizarre Love Triangle", don't need any revising, others, like a percussive "Ultraviolence" or a poppy "Who's Joe", seem more ripe for live tinkering. Wisely, Sumner fades into the tunes here, and very rarely tries to take on a stronger role than he did in the past. One would expect Barney, with Peter Hook no longer in the band, to perhaps be a more forceful presence, but his vocals are still easy and effortless. If "Heart and Soul" now sounds like a New Order song in its live iteration, and not a Joy Division one, Sumner and Stephen Morris probably have some little right at attempting such a thing. And there is, with that one and "Disorder", a way to both honor the distant past, and the memory of the late Ian Curtis, while sort of staking a claim to the tune too. The few JD tracks here on ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes .. work, is what I'm getting at.
And while they would have once been pegged an act making music in the dance genre some ages ago, New Order are clearly doing more than that. Sure, there's a trace of that here, but there's no "Blue Monday" either, is there, on this one? Perhaps it's the advancing ages of the three original players here, but the tunes that work so well on this live set are the mid-tempo ones that allow room for a vast sonic space to be created and explored, and not the cuts where one would expect a sort of big beat to anchor things. "Your Silent Face" shines, as does a glistening unfolding of "All Day Long", a number from 1986's Brotherhood that is, it seems, starting to be acknowledged by others besides me as a real classic in this group's deep back-catalog. "Shellshock" still pulses and clatters in the right ways, while "Sub-culture" is now almost a singalong. Well, at least it is here on this live record. And that vibe is earned, really, as the music of the band is serious not dour, you know? A bristling "Vanishing Point", originally from the nearly-perfect Technique (1988), here feels like a victory lap, with each of the original players in the group adding enough to make the song less busy and more sleek than it may have seemed before. What New Order are really doing on ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes .. is finding the hooks or tunes first, then building up the material once again. Call it maturity or whatever, but New Order seem to understand how little ornamentation these numbers need, even as the flourishes that are here, particularly those from Morris and Gilbert, seem more integral than ever before.
∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes .. is out today via Mute Records.
More details on New Order via the band's official website, or their offical Facebook page.
[Photo: Warren Jackson]