New Order’s technical revolution occurred over the course of four tracks: ‘Truth’, where we blooded our Boss Dr-55 Doctor Rhythm; ‘Everything’s Gone Green’, where we created the first post-punk rock/dance track by any Manchester group, using pulsed synthesisers for the first time; and then ‘Temptation’ and ‘Hurt’.
We always went through the same process when we started to write: what kind of song do we want? Fast, dancey, powerful, catchy? It never changed. Fast dancey tracks were always the most difficult to write, and were very few and far between. Meanwhile, we started to experiment by triggering the synthesisers with control voltage from the outputs on the drum machine, programing different rhythms until we got something we liked. It didn’t take long: it was so new that everything we did sounded fantastic. ‘Temptation’ quickly followed, no pun intended, with the pièce de résistance being the first fully programmed sequencer song, ‘Hurt’.
Recorded for a clean start at Advision Studios in London, ‘Temptation’ and ‘Hurt’ were not only our first tracks without Martin Hannett and our debut as producers, but the ones on which we used the lessons learned on ‘Truth’ and ‘Everything’s Gone Green’ to take yet another huge leap forward.
They were also the tracks on which we channelled a love of Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder Ian Curtis had first introduced us to the icy Germans, and that was quickly followed by an even greater admiration for Moroder, particularly his work with Donna Summer on ‘I Feel Love’ and his production of the wonderful Sparks track ‘Number One Song in Heaven’. His solo record E=MC2 became a big inspiration and definitely led us into ‘Temptation’. All we had to do was work out how they bloody did it.
But we did and, looking back now, those four tracks were a milestone, if not for everyone, then certainly for us. For New Order they heralded a completely new way of writing, recording and performing – a unique blend of the science-fiction futurism of Kraftwerk and the unpolished edge you could only get from a Factory band.
For example, if you listen to ‘Everything’s Gone Green’, all through the song there is a variance to the pulses that defies logic but sounds great. Also the twelve-inch of ‘Temptation’ is riddled with mistakes, programmed and acoustic, again to great effect. It sounds like we had something fantastic in our hands that we were struggling to express and contain. It was true. The songs sound much more fragile, approachable and human because of it.
The Advision session went well. Our aim was to record and finish off ‘Temptation’ and ‘Hurt’ (initially ‘Cramp’). Barney and me very much took command, organising the recording and the overdubbing. The keyboards and drum machine were recorded and the acoustic instruments layered on top until we were happy with the amount of melodies and the song structure. Vocals would also be jammed, having already been tried out – aided by the demon alcohol – ‘live’ at gigs by Barney, with the best bits refined in the studio. He also developed a method technically known as ‘dah dee deeing’ where he would hum, whistle, and scat-sing etc. over the backing track to see whether it suggested a vocal line or not. This led to some wonderful moments, the ‘Oohs’ on ‘Temptation’ being the first. I can safely say, without hesitation or fear of contradiction, that my basslines would often be used as an inspiration for a lot of the vocal lines throughout our career, something I was very proud of. Barney called me ‘Mr Melody’ in his lighter moments, of which sadly there weren’t many.
‘Hurt’ was an entirely different matter; here we had New Order’s first sequencer song. This was achieved by recording the analogue monophonic bassline into our first sequencer.
Geek Alert
Sequencers
An analogue sequencer is a device that can record and play back music programmed into it. It achieves this by handling the note and performance information in several forms, typically voltage/gate and trigger information using analogue electronics. The sequencers were designed for both composition and live performance for what was generally thought of as repetitive music such as that by Kraftwerk or Giorgio Moroder, music with a trance-like feel enhanced by repetition. The programming was done in steps. On ‘step sequencers’, notes are rounded into equal time intervals of different durations: 32’s, 16’s, 8’s, 4’s. Sequencers had no swing sound, or what we call ‘real feel’. This would be offered later.
The sequencer gave a very stiff, precise and robotic output, exactly what Barney wanted. If I remember rightly, this first way of programming was called binary code, a combination of ons and offs, and this was how he programmed the first home-made sequencer using Powertran parts he had built for us by Martin Usher, his own resident electronic genius. This was joined by a custom-built adaptation of a Clef band box, which was the drum machine included in many home organs that Martin bastardised for us, converting it into a programmable drum machine with separate outputs for each drum sound (Martin Hannett had ‘drummed’ this into us as being absolutely vital for the best spatial recording and audio separation). Martin was a lovely man who accompanied us on our first tour of Australia just to keep our ramshackle collection of keyboards in working order.
Our initial foray into electronica, defined as music created using electronic instruments (synthesisers, drum machines and, soon, samplers etc.), but being dominated by an electronic sound was bringing its own brand-new, inherent set of problems.
Both drum machine and sequencer were rack-mounted and looked good but were very unreliable. The sequencer could only play one song at a time.
At the end of the session we were both very happy with the finished tracks. Well, me and Barney were. It would be years later when Steve would tell us how unhappy he was with ‘Temptation’. It seemed the snare drum was panned over to one side, which he hated, but he chose not to tell us until nearly twenty years later, typical Steve. At the time we obviously took his silence as approval.
The engineer, Peter Woolliscroft, finished our technologically revolutionary EP off perfectly by using and mastering with one of the first-ever Sony PCM 1610 digital editing systems available in the UK. This was very much in keeping with our new forward-looking attitude. We were persuaded to record a shorter, seven-inch version at the same time. We weren’t that keen but Tony Wilson said it was imperative. He thought it needed to be heard on the radio, this being, he felt, the first song Barney had written in his own voice as opposed to aping Ian. Ironically we would emulate the seven-inch version for gigs not the twelve-inch version.
It reached number 29 in the UK charts. Not bad for a first effort. It was also our first success of note in America. An FM station, WLIR in New York, championed it and turned it into a regional hit. We were absolutely oblivious.
I had heard that some people felt these ‘electronic ideas’ had been suppressed in Joy Division. This was not the case at all. It was a natural learning curve afforded by using new technology as it became readily available.
This newly available equipment was very impressive and expensive (the ARP Quadra and Pro One collectively cost £3,000 in 1982), and led to the creation of a lot of awful white middle-class synth boy-bands, they being the only ones who could afford this new technology. It would be years before the equipment to make this kind of music would be readily available to the working class, leading thankfully to another revolution: acid house. But Rob never had trouble finding the money for any of it. As far as he was concerned, the more futuristic and expensive the better. Interestingly we were using the funds of a rock band – Joy Division – to go synth.