New Order - 1988 Demos, Rehearsals and Other Ephemera

This is a really great collection of New Order rarities from the Technique era, but rather than go into details about the contents, I'm going to share the original text file included with the FLAC files I've converted these MP3s from. Credit goes out to Tom Hulme for leaking the tape and sharing his thoughts and The Happy One for further elaborating on the details and getting the files out there. Details follow below:

A unique collection of Technique-era demos/monitor mix playbacks/Hooky live playing, as well as several unreleased mixes of 'Blue Monday 1988'.

Digitized from Tom's Hulme's tape, which he received from an engineer at the recording sessions.

He writes:


"In 1988, I was a simple bricklayer working in Box, Wiltshire, UK. Just around the corner from the executive houses I was building was Peter Gabriel's Real World studios.

Incredibly, I just wandered in there one lunchtime to find an empty studio full of instruments, where New Order were recording. The engineer from that recording session gave me a cassette.

The cassette is labeled A&M Studios and has "*New Order* (Various Takes)" typed on both sides. On Side 1 is hand-written "Ideas from Recording etc Jun/Jul etc". On Side 2 is hand-written "Rehersal [sic] - 25/4/88".

Side 1 starts off with some rather tinny jamming, samples, etc. However, the sound quality soon improves and there are lengthy jams, short snippets of conversation (presumably from Peter Hook and Barney Sumner) and various samples of instrumentation, including a couple of rough takes of complete songs. Most of the music has no vocals, but there are a couple of tracks with vocals. Not being a huge New Order fan, I'm afraid that I can't say whether these are early rehearsals of known songs or unreleased rarities!

Side 2 consists of numerous remixes of Blue Monday (I know that song!). They all differ in as far as they have odd samples, loops and synthesizer parts incorporated. It is also interspersed with some rough jams by the boys (and girl!), some bass lines by Hooky and a bit of noodling from Barney.

This tape is totally original and a one-off. I have not made any copies, so it is a totally unique piece of New Order memorabilia."


Tom did a surprisingly good job of summarizing on what was on this tape, and as the following will illustrate, the contents are anything but straightforward for anybody wishing to understand how the group works. Like the best of any sort of art, it raises more questions than it answers!

Incredibly, we have not one but *three* sets of rarities on this tape.

First: unreleased mixes of Blue Monday 1988, different variations made for the band, likely composed for their approval. I believe the version without the 'ah boy this is too much' samples was eventually edited down to become the 7" version, while a version with the samples became the 12" version, though in these mixes the samples are sequenced and are different than the released version. I believe that this is what the "03/03/1988" date refers to.

The entire tape (on both sides) most likely originally consisted of these mixes. Somewhere along the line (likely starting on April 25th) this was taped over with monitor mixes and rehearsals taken from the Technique sessions. You can tell because there is forward bleed-through throughout the first side of Blue Monday 1988, including through a long segment of ambient room recording while the band work on the bass synth line of what I would guess was then known as 'Much Too Old', soon to be reworked into what was released as 'Fine Time'.

Over that, we have a tiny bit of guitar and bass noodling (the latter nothing less than a brief attempt at something akin to 'New Horizon' by Section 25!), and then, for me the highlight of the whole tape, a full demo of Dream Attack, with STUNNING basswork by Hooky at the start. Then we have Hooky playing along live to the backing track and monitor playbacks of the same, similar bass playback along to a work-in-progress Mr. Disco, and various riffs, including a nascent 'The Happy One' and 'All The Way'. This continues on side two, with more Hooky riffing. Then we have rehearsal-type samples of 'Guilty Partner', 'Don't Do It', and what we've termed 'Unknown #2', which didn't survive the cut, though some of the ideas on that number were likely carried into "All The Way"

I believe these all came out of the 4/25 session, as it's clear that the songs were still being composed at that time.

And over that, we have the start of the tape, which totals about 9 minutes, and features more work-in-progress samples of the songs that so far have been composed. Alas, the quality on these is lower than the rest of the tape, I reckon that they're probably at least a couple of generations off. I think these tracks are later than that follows, since we have nearly-complete backings for 'Mr Disco', 'Don't Do It', 'Best and Marsh', and 'MTO' with 'Loveless' being mostly-recognizable. Only 'Run' on here is still in early (slower tempo) form. We also have, for the first time, two samples of songs that never made it to completion. The second in particular features a gorgeous Sumner riff that I swear is naggingly familiar, but I can't place it! I think these were composed over the June/July 1988 timeframe and are what 'Ideas from Recording etc Jun/Jul etc' refers to.

And there you have it!

This version has been mastered by drewc, who also handled some of the live soundboard material that appeared on the first box of tapes which was sold on eBay several years ago.

Where warranted, fades has been inserted, as well as silences, etc being removed, so that the contents could, at 79 minutes exactly, fit onto a single CD. There were multiple playbacks of the Blue Monday 1988 remix material on the tape, all have been included here, although it appears that there's only two different remixes, which were repeated over and over it seems, as can be evidenced by the bleed-through during the long ambient room recording.

Enjoy. I know you've all been waiting to hear this, and I hope it doesn't disappoint!

THO

This is split into two archives for downloading, one for each side of the tape, so make sure you get both. Enjoy!


New Order - 1988 Demos, Rehearsals and Other Ephemera

Side One: "Ideas from Recording etc Jun/Jul etc"

01 Loveless
02 Mr. Disco
03 Don't Do It
04 Run (Early Version)
05 Unknown #1
06 Best and Marsh
07 MTO
08 Unknown #2
09 guitar and bass checks
10 Dream Attack (Demo)
11 Dream Attack (Hooky bass over playback)
12 Dream Attack (monitor playback)
13 Dream Attack (Hooky bass over playback with piano)
14 Mr. Disco (Hooky bass over playback)
15 Low-Fi Hooky Riffing
16 Hi-Fi Hooky Riffing
17 More Hi-Fi Hooky Riffing
18 All The Way (Hooky Bass)
19 low-volume ambient recording (Blue Monday playback plus bass synth to MTO)

Side Two: "Rehersal - 25/4/88"

01 All The Way (Hooky Bass)
02 'The Him' style riff (Hooky Bass)
03 Blue Monday 1988 (No Samples Version, cuts off)
04 Guilty Partner (Rehearsal Takes)
05 Don't Do It (Rehearsal Takes)
06 Unknown #2 (Rehearsal Takes)
07 Blue Monday 1988 (No Samples Version, start is missing)
08 Blue Monday 1988 (No Samples Version)
09 Blue Monday 1988 (Alternate Version 1)
10 Blue Monday 1988 (Alternate Version 2)


PS - If you're craving more New Order gems, you should visit Recycle and The Power Of Independent Trucking. I'm sure you'll find both sites utterly essential, although Recycle is dedicated specifically to the Joy Division and New Order legacies.