The Wedding Present + more across Manchester Academy.
Martin Gray revisits New Order’s impressive third album Low-life, originally issued in May 1985 – a significant release in the band’s catalogue which broke from tradition in two ways: the first album of theirs to have singles taken from it, and also the first – and only – album which actually featured the band members on its sleeve art.
Low-life album: first issue LP, cassette and CD formats (Factory / Qwest)
How the hell can it be 40 years already having elapsed since New Order’s Low-life album (Fact 100) was originally released?
I was just a couple of months shy of turning 20 when Low-life came out, and in my second year at Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic during those halcyon times as a carefree art student. Of course it was a much-anticipated new album from a band I already became quite infatuated with in a very short period of time (1982’s Temptation single finally did it for me, whilst Power, Corruption & Lies was my album of the year in 1983).
Rushing out to Volume Records* in town to purchase the vinyl of Low-life without even knowing what it looked like (part of the fun and utter joy of buying albums on release day back then of course – a complete world away from how things are now), I was surprised to see the Peter Saville-designed cover presented to me – a monochrome image of the band’s drummer Stephen Morris adoring the front of the sleeve but with a tracing paper outer wraparound exhibiting the album title running upwards on the right hand side, and his partner and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert on the reverse of the sleeve, with the song titles listed down one side on the left in minuscule typography. Wow! How cool was that concept?
Accordingly, Low-life’s inner sleeve featured portraits of singer Bernard Sumner and bass god Peter Hook. But then again how perverse was that? This was a band celebrated and renowned for their anti-image and stoical anonymity on their record covers (much less have any other information on them) and yet here they are – portrayed in person on each face of the sleeve fronts and backs. I was also informed that a single from the album – The Perfect Kiss – was out the same day (another odd quirk – usually singles precede the album some weeks prior) and available on 12″ vinyl if I wished to have that as well. So I accepted the invitation to bag that too. This – true to the band’s usual policy of minimalism – was in a plain silver sleeve with the words of the title again running upwards in embossed lettering across the right hand opening side as per the album.
Two lovely pieces of art for less than a tenner it was then. Excited at snapping these up, I hurried back to my friend’s hall of residence to stick them on the stereo and give them a spin.
*30 Ridley Place, Newcastle upon Tyne. Sadly now no longer in existence due to inevitable redevelopment of part of this road.
Low-life singles: The Perfect Kiss (Fac 123) 12″, 7″ (UK and Benelux); Sub-culture (Fac 133) 7″ (UK)
A logical progression and refinement
1983’s Power Corruption & Lies was the sound of New Order liberating themselves from the relatively ponderous and often claustrophobic confines of the debut 1981 album Movement – and it was a masterstroke in how to sequence an album so perfectly as to be almost flawless. Consider the album’s eight tracks arranged in dumb-bell fashion – bookended with two guitar led tracks apiece (the stunningly magnificent opener Age Of Consent and the woozy dislocation dirge of We All Stand on side one, and the closing pair on side two comprising the vocodered post-punk of Ecstasy and majestic, chiming jangle of Leave Me Alone), with the middle section showcasing four sublime sequencer / synth / drum-machine driven tracks (The Village, 5-8-6, Your Silent Face and Ultraviolence), and you have an immaculate 50/50 split of guitar rock and electronic dance that effectively became New Order’s first defining statement and a fair hint of where their sound would head next.
The gorgeous 1984 stand-alone single Thieves Like Us (co-written with Arthur Baker) had one of the most dreamily euphoric extended intros of any New Order song but even this was no indicator of what would follow. Meanwhile, the band members concentrated on producing various Factory acts as well as helping out others, most notably Bernard Sumner who, along with A Certain Ratio’s Donald Johnson, assisted fellow label mates Section 25 to reinvent themselves from a dour PiL/Can/Joy Division-influenced post punk act to sleek European electronic dance pioneers with their masterful From The Hip album and Looking From A Hilltop single – generally regarded as one of the most influential electro singles of the 1980s – and elevating their own profile in the process.
As a result of this, New Order remained largely silent for a whole year, but they were already working on preparing tracks for what would become Low-life, even debuting a few of them live whilst on tour. Curiously, the single which was supposed to trail it – The Perfect Kiss – was not released before the parent album as would otherwise be standard practice, but on the same day, and more surprising still, it was also included on the album. Even though it featured as a shorter edit of the full length 12″ version, it meant that, sadly, the single did not fare as well as any other previous New Order 45, being their first UK release to fail to make the top 40 altogether – stalling just outside it at #46.
This unexpected break from tradition – including a single on a New Order album for the first time – was as much a surprise to many as was the realisation that the album cover to Low-life featured the band members’ portraits, but conversely, over time, this album’s sleeve art is now considered one of the most iconic of the band’s entire catalogue and happily forms the centrepiece of a sequence of five New Order album covers which arguably are their finest ever. It is also, appropriately enough, considered to be the first album of their ‘imperial phase’ – a magnificent triumvirate which continued with 1986’s Brotherhood and 1989’s Technique (their last for Factory Records).
Instead of taking the easy route and replicating the sound and configuration of what had gone before, New Order encamped themselves at Britannia Row and Jam Studios with a whole slew of new equipment: keyboards, sequencers, samplers, drum machines, etc., to create a series of tracks that – even more effectively and proficiently than Power Corruption & Lies – fused together the former separate guitar / rock and electronic / dance elements that were their trademark polarities, to sometimes startling effect.
The perfect synergy of human and machine
Nowhere is this synergy of human and machine (obviously influenced by their love of Kraftwerk from the very start) more apparent on Low-life than on the respective pairing of tracks that sit in the middle of each side: The Perfect Kiss/This Time of Night on side one and Sooner Than You Think/Sub-culture on side two.
The Perfect Kiss in particular is a truly stupendous example of how four unassuming people like New Order can fabricate such a gigantic tsunami of exhilarating noise using mostly keyboards, bass, guitar, drum machines, acoustic Latin percussion, and incongruous frog samples (!), all based on a rudimentary sequence of just four notes (five at a push), without it ever sounding like it will run out of momentum. In fact, a sense of sustained momentum is exactly what The Perfect Kiss excels at. Although the album features a truncated 4.50 mins edit of this track, the full length 12-inch version runs for almost 9 minutes and has climax after climax during its utterly gargantuan 3 minute coda (incorporating what sounds like several kitchen sinks, total all out mayhem, a plane crash and a gremlin expiring at the very dying seconds – exhaling ‘we-e-e-e-e-e-l-l-l-l..’). It really is an explosive eargasm quite unlike anything before or since.
The promo video shot for this single – lasting over 10 minutes – is something else entirely, featuring a completely different live studio recording and being stunning in its minimalistic simplicity in the way the four band members are filmed looking virtually immobile (bar Peter Hook, as usual), with long lingering camera shots fixed on each member in turn at the end – appearing variously bemused and spent at having just brought the song to such an apocalyptic and cacophonous conclusion.
Sub-culture, by contrast, is a stately electronic stomper with almost neo-classical / Wagnerian pretensions in places which effectively re-appropriates New Order’s recent reciprocal Bobby Orlando / Hi-NRG inspirations/connections (via their 1984 foray at The Funhouse Club in NYC’s Paradise Garage) by way of a sneakily reverential two-note synth bassline and topped with Bernard’s characteristically deadpan, almost self-mocking, vocals.
Curiously, it too was released as a second single** from Low-life a few months later (again not faring too well in the UK charts – in fact it remains their lowest charting single, reaching only #63), albeit in drastically remodelled form – arguably to the original album cut’s detriment: featuring an overly fussy stuttering remix by John Robie, further embellished with pointless soulful backing vocals which verge on the gorgonzola and 80s cliche and to top it all, with the original version’s bass sequencer shifted onto the half-beat. The remix sounds clunky, clumsy and above all gratuitous.
**Furthermore, these two tracks also share a peculiar lyrical coincidence which if anything is an indication of the band’s sense of humour. Die-hard fans will readily and eagerly recall with mischievous glee how Bernard Sumner’s working title for The Perfect Kiss was ‘I’ve Got A Cock Like The M1’. The second verse of this track contains the line: ‘Tonight I should have stayed at home/Playing with my pleasure zone….’
Meanwhile, Sub-culture also includes the similarly perverse: ‘One of these days when you sit by yourself/You realise you can’t shaft without someone else….’ Taking the latter (in particular the over-egged / overcooked Robie remix) into context, just hearing the female backing vocalists singing – perfectly straight-faced – those same words shadowing Bernard’s voice is surely one of the most unintentionally hilarious moments in rock. When those backing singers then sign it off with their soulful ‘whoa-oh-oh’ ad-libs – you’re practically pissing yourself from sheer stomach-cramping hysterics.
This Time Of Night’s far moodier and insinuating atmosphere (more existential despair lyrically) presents a stark contrast from the sheer headrush of its predecessor … prefaced by the voice of Spectator journalist Jeffrey Bernard saying words that gave the album its title ‘I’m one of the few people who lives what’s called a low-life…’ (Low Life was the title of his weekly column in said publication). This sample caused controversy with said journo who objected to the band’s unauthorised use of it and he threatened legal action. But the band reassured him it was removed – having sneakily reduced the volume of it down to a barely perceptible whisper, whilst leaving it on the recording.
The other notable thing about this track lies in the bass sequencer’s melody which is a direct steal of the main four-note bass synth figure to The Cure’s A Forest. Something which did not escape the attention of the latter band’s Robert Smith – when, accused of often cribbing from New Order in the past (that same year they would return with the brilliant pop single In Between Days which many point out bore much resemblance to New Order’s Dreams Never End), retorted good-humouredly: ‘Besides, New Order even ripped off A Forest on their new album! They simply slowed it down! I reckon they must have had a few beers, got drunk, put the Cure record on and then decided “wow! that sounds like a good tune!” and ran with it!’
Turn that bass up and play it high and loud!
Peter Hook’s bass is prominent on every single one of Low-life’s eight tracks – often pushed to the fore and played an octave higher (as on The Perfect Kiss and the album’s deceptively breezy sounding opener Love Vigilantes). It is worth noting how each member’s instrument plays an equal part in the overall sound of this album, with the result that the production sounds a lot brighter and a lot more distinct, with much clarity of top end as well. On a few tracks (The Perfect Kiss, Sunrise, Sooner Than You Think and closer Face Up) the mixing/production curiously mitigates a lot of the bottom end, leading to some audiophiles taking issue with the fact that the album sounds ‘trebly’.
Indeed, Sunrise, the fast paced and formidably intense and fierce rocker that closes side one, starts with a foreboding, glowering, bass synth figure which ushers in the track, creating a sense of impending menace. This synth rings deep into the low end of the speakers but as soon as the track kicks in with all its ferocity amid what sounds like guitars appropriating shotgun ricochets, the low end suddenly disappears. What ensues for the next five and a half minutes is this sheer wall of slashing post-punk guitars and relentlessly pummelling drums – and keening, angst ridden vocals from Bernard spitting out words of accusation and betrayal – which possibly make for New Order’s angriest and most aggressive sounding track ever. It’s one of those songs which you have to crank up loud for maximum effect, and a truly majestic climax to the first side.
It isn’t all angst and gnashing of teeth however. New Order’s sole foray into cod-country and western on Low-life’s opener Love Vigilantes certainly bemused a lot of critics and fans alike on first listen. I recall a couple of journalists at the time (in particular Steve Sutherland of Melody Maker) dismissing this track as one of the worst NO songs ever and citing it as an example of triteness and self parody, but over the course of time, it has generally come to be regarded as a rather heartfelt and touching ode that clearly betrays an anti-Vietnam war message within its lyrical tropes of a homecoming soldier’s tale (or it could even be his ghost, having died in conflict). Many fans now appreciate it better in hindsight, and the bittersweet melody and overall tone of the track (kicking off with a sweet melodica riff that immediately endears to the listener) has belatedly earned its stripes so to speak. In fact, such was the popularity of this track for some that the famous and venerable punk/folk/roots collective The Oyster Band released a cover of it as a single in 1989.
Diversity is the album’s greatest strength
The sheer diversity of Low-life is worth mentioning: album centrepiece (side two track one) is an atmospheric, melancholic instrumental suitably titled Elegia. Edited down from an original studio take that lasted seventeen-and-a-half minutes to just under five, it’s a brooding soundtrack for a non-existent movie of sorts where each instrument is allowed as much space as it wishes to make its mark: twinkling glacial keyboards, ringing bass, alternately shimmering and choppy guitars, soothing string synths, distant rolling cymbals (sometimes in reverse) and echoing bass drums, etc…. All these elements coalesce into a cyclical motif that repeats itself several times (and does so to an interminable extent on the full unedited cut which was issued much later on the remastered deluxe editions). It’s a sort of New Age Order if you like, their own take on Tubular Bells perhaps? In truth, it’s not quite as frivolous or trivial as that…..save to say that the title and piece is actually dedicated to the memory of Ian Curtis on the fifth anniversary of his death.
Arguably the album’s most immediate pop song follows on from this intermission: Sooner Than You Think was first previewed on BBC’s Radio 1 Saturday Live /Rock Around The Clock sessions in August 1984. It was the only new song of five they played that afternoon in a studio set up which appalled and angered Bernard Sumner so much (due to the chaotic mix all channelling into just one pair of headphones such that he could hardly discern the separate instruments of his fellow bandmates) he took to cussing and deliberately planting F-bombs into the lyrics of Blue Monday and other songs!
On the album here, it opens with the same sampled congas as heard on The Perfect Kiss, and then a pleasing mesh of bell-synth, drum machine, bass, acoustic drumkit, guitars, and string-synth. Bernard sounds more serene and upbeat on this number despite the lyrics touching variously on travelling, parties, fights, broken hearts and other rights and wrongs which then manifests itself (three times) in an atypically catchy refrain/chorus of ‘oh you know what I mean, yes you do’. It possessed all the credentials to be a better choice of single than Sub-culture, but I guess it was eschewed in favour of the latter possessing far more dance club-friendly potential (hence that godawful naff, dated John Robie remix – although having said that the later Razormaid remixes were far superior and more in keeping with the spirit of the original LP cut).
Gleeful and inebriated dance rock?
As an indicator of just how far New Order have come from PC&L, Low-life’s closing track Face Up is a gleeful, almost inebriated, romp through yet more Hi-NRG-infiltrated dance-rock that is the band’s inimitable template. Curiously bearing an almost identical structure (but alas not key, nor melody, nor tempo) to 1982’s Temptation – of which this could feasibly be a close relative (just think of the mash ups which could be made – Face Up 2 Temptation, anybody?!) – we have one of the most convoluted intros of any NO track – comprising as it does no less than four separate distinct sections: a clipped synth arpeggio heralding Hooky’s growling distorted bass and thudding kick drums, white noise handclaps and ominous choir chords, then a truly hilarious descending slap bass figure bursts in apropos of nothing (sounding for all the world like a Dead Or Alive*** track has suddenly gatecrashed proceedings), before swiftly yielding to a typically bouncy bass-driven passage that recalls Evelyn Thomas or Hazell Dean at their most frisky, then breaking down into a chattering percussive rumble just prior to Bernard’s first words appearing at 1:10 minutes: ‘Ever since I’ve seen your face, this life of mine has gone to waste…’ Only for him to then intermittently burst out with a breathless and delirious proclamation: ‘Oh how I cannot bear the thought of you…whoo!’, getting more frenetic and – dare I say it – hysterical each time it comes around such that by the close of the song he’s so animated it sounds as if he’s overdone the happy disco pills.
It’s a truly eyebrow-raising number that is so atypical of New Order but Bernard’s increasingly atonal hollering and yelping on this track does have a precedent in some ways on the 1982 track Hurt (the B-side to Temptation), where again he’s whooping and squealing with total abandon. It matters little that he’s occasionally singing off-key on Face Up anyway (many of the Low-life tracks actually see him in a higher register than usual) because it seems like he’s enjoying himself so much that his vocal pitching is intentionally teetering and careering all over the shop.
***Ironically enough Dead Or Alive’s album Youthquake (produced by Stock Aitken & Waterman and featuring the massive number 1 smash You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) was released the same week as Low-life and entered the album chart at #9 – two places below New Order who debuted at #7.
Low-life is the sound of New Order finally allowing themselves to break free from the shackles of their former dour, awkward, and reticent selves and letting their hair down, and as such is an appreciable step up from PC&L (excellent though the latter undoubtedly was) in terms of its variety of moods and textures. It’s also the realisation and expressive declaration of a band growing into – and fitting more happily within – its new skin and as such is a far more accomplished sounding record in many ways.
Nevertheless, this further new major stride forward from out of the old murk (the icy arrangements on Movement, for instance, are rather akin to being caught in a foggy blizzard, whilst PC&L constituted the first tangible steps towards brighter pastures precipitating by all accounts a complete reinvention) was only the start – as far greater was yet to come. Four decades later, critical re-examination of Low-life reveals an incarnation of New Order at a crucial transitional stage of their career where they hover on the verge of transformation into the influential dance-rock juggernaut that soon became household names all over the UK, Europe, and, ultimately, US and beyond.
Oh you know what I mean, yes you do.
Revisitation and text by Martin Gray
Check his profile here for other articles.
Photos of vinyl, cassette and CD formats taken from the author’s own personal collection.
Purchase Low-life (in standard, deluxe or definitive editions) plus all other available New Order releases from official store or the official band website
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