Artist

New Order

Salford, United Kingdom • Formed 1980

New Order is a music group from Salford, United Kingdom, active since 1980. Their discography on Gatefold includes 24 records.

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Albums tracked

778

In collections

1980

Since

Biography

New Order is an English new wave/synthpop band which formed in 1980 in Salford, England, United Kingdom by the three remaining members of Joy Division. The band's classic lineup consists of Bernard Sumner (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Peter Hook (bass, electronic percussion), Gillian Gilbert (keyboards, guitar) and Stephen Morris (drums, keyboards). The group effectively disbanded in 1993 but reformed in 1998. Gilbert left in 2001 to look after her and Morris' children and was replaced by guitarist/keyboardist Phil Cunningham.

The Arc of New Order

The pivots — what forced New Order to reinvent.

The Post-Joy Division Limbo
Moving from the shadow of Joy Division meant stripped-back production and Sumner finding a voice that didn't just mimic Ian Curtis. 1981's 'Movement' still sounds like a Martin Hannett record, cold and claustrophobic, but you can hear the drum machines starting to itch for more space. They were lugging around heavy, unreliable hardware like the Prophet-5 and the Moog Source, trying to bridge the gap between post-punk gloom and the New York club scene they’d just discovered. It’s the sound of a band terrified of the future but walking straight into it anyway.
The Ibiza and Balearic Shift
By 1989, the band decamped to Ibiza to record 'Technique' and got swallowed whole by the burgeoning acid house scene. They traded the moody Manchester rain for Balearic beats and Roland TB-303 basslines, creating a record that finally balanced Peter Hook’s high-neck bass melodies with pure dancefloor euphoria. This wasn't just adding a remix; it was the moment they stopped being a rock band playing synths and became a dance act that happened to use guitars. It’s arguably their most cohesive work because the hedonism of the scene matched the frantic energy of their sequencing.
The Republic Fracture
The 1993 'Republic' sessions were essentially a forced march to save Factory Records from bankruptcy, and you can hear the desperation in the polish. Stephen Hague was brought in to produce, and he smoothed over all the rough edges that made the band interesting in the first place. The tracks feel more like programmed MIDI files than a band interacting in a room, reflecting the fact that they were barely speaking to each other during the process. It’s the start of the 'corporate New Order' era where the grit was replaced by a high-gloss finish that never quite sat right.

Influences

Kraftwerk — The band famously traveled to see them on the 'Computer World' tour and obsessed over the precision of their sequencing. You hear it directly in the 'Your Silent Face' synth lead, which is a blunt homage to 'Europe Endless.' They took the German roboticism and injected it with messy British emotion.
The Velvet Underground — Sumner and Hook have cited the Velvets as the reason they picked up instruments after seeing them play. The drone and simplicity of 'All Tomorrow's Parties' is the DNA for the long, repetitive instrumental outros on 'Leave Me Alone' and 'Ceremony.' It’s the art-school grit that kept them from becoming a pure pop act.
Ennio Morricone — The cinematic scale of Morricone’s scores heavily influenced the way they used melodrama and space in their arrangements. The melodica line on 'Love Vigilantes' and the sweeping, lonely atmospherics of 'Elegia' are straight out of a Spaghetti Western. It gave their dance tracks a sense of lonely, wide-open geography.
Giorgio Moroder — The pulse of Donna Summer’s 'I Feel Love' was the specific blueprint for 'Blue Monday.' They wanted to replicate that relentless, mechanized 16th-note bassline using their own custom-built sequencers. Moroder provided the map for how a rock band could survive in a disco.
Iggy Pop — Ian Curtis was listening to 'The Idiot' the night he died, and that record’s cold, industrial-pop hybrid stayed with the survivors. The distorted, mechanical thud of 'Nightclubbing' is all over the early New Order singles like 'Procession.' They took Iggy's Berlin-era nihilism and moved it to the Hacienda dancefloor.