Tag Archives: New Order

NEW ORDER – Power, Corruption & Lies (Released: 2nd May 1983)

New Order PC&L
New Order performed for the first time in Glasgow at Eglinton Toll Plaza in January 1981. They would release their first single ‘Ceremony’ two months later and their debut album ‘Movement’ would appear in November of that year. They would perform at Glasgow Tiffany’s in April 1983 to promote the release of their next album, ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’.

By the time of the Tiffany’s gig New Order had arrived, distinctively different form the Plaza show. Included in that set was ‘Blue Monday’, ‘Temptation’ and ‘Confusion’ which would be produced by Arthur Baker who had also produced the Kraftwerk influenced ‘Planet Rock’ by Afrika Bambaataa. ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’ is a beautiful record from the sleeve design by Peter Saville, to the songs and the production by New Order (Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook had watched and learned from Martin Hannett). The title of the album was chosen by Bernard Sumner from a 1981 conceptual art exhibition in Cologne, Germany. On the opening night of the exhibition the artist Gerhard Richter vandalised the exterior of the Kunsthalle by spray painting the text, “Power, Corruption, and Lies. Still seems a very apt title given today’s political climate.
New Order creates it! FEAST rates it!

Django Django, Pavilion Theatre, Brighton.

Django Django formed in Edinburgh in 2009 after meeting at Art College. We caught them at Brighton’s Pavilion Theatre, the huge queue outside a fair indication of how the band’s following has built up over the last couple of years although  undoubtedly the crowd is swelled further by the fact that they have been on Jools Holland’s TV show the night before.

On their eponymous album, released earlier this year, there are definite whiffs of the shambolic charm of the Beta Band but live I am surprised to find they have a pristine sound and incisiveness  which adds an epic quality that I wasn’t expecting. There is actually a Beta Band connection though as it turns out as drummer David Maclean’s big brother was a member of the much missed outfit.

Like the Beta Band Django Django understand how to mix their musical influences together in intoxicating ways: The keys cut through the mix  aggressively, threatening to turn the gig into a nineties style rave, the vocals float above the rest of the music with spacious psychedelic harmonies and the cowbell clanks as if your head is in a metal waste paper bin and Mr T is on the outside hitting the bin with a gold drumstick. At one point  the keyboards cut out, just as Grimes’ sequencers will do the following night but nothing can stop the Django feel good funnel for long and the ivories kick back in after a couple of minutes, albeit in mono.

From where we were standing, which was admittedly fairly near the back,  the pleasingly surreal impression I got of the band visually was that the group was made up of New Order’s Bernard Sumner on vocals, Jimmy Carr, the unnaturally huge headed joke jockey, on guitar and playwright Dennis Potter on keys.  On later reflection having seen their video appearance on BBC iplayer I realise this impression was possibly, arguably, slightly wide of the mark.  Either way Django Django are one of the best bands to emerge in the UK in a long time and live manage to be charming, exciting and original all in one accessible, love-able package and there just aren’t too many new bands around just now that you can say that about.