STACK #129 Jul 2016

MUSIC

NEWS

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continued

new order say 'music complete' as joy division reissues hit

Sitting down with FElix Bushe gengahr

O nce upon a time, New Order were called Joy Division. Changing their name in the early '80s after the tragic suicide of frontman Ian Curtis, they blazed a trail as innovators throughout the 1980s with hits like Blue Monday and Temptation, before going on a long hiatus in the late 1990s. After the well received Get Ready (2001) and the lukewarm Waiting for the Siren's Call (2005), they broke up in 2007 after a well publicised row with bassist Peter Hook. Ten years on from their last album, New Order have announced a new studio album (without Hook) to be released in September called Music: Complete. Chemical Brothers' Tom Rowlands has produced two tracks, while another track called Superheated features additional work by sometime Madonna producer Stuart Price. All the new activity in the New

Order camp coincides with the re-releases of the Joy Division catalogue, comprising their two studio albums (both produced by the late Martin Hannett). Unknown Pleasures and Closer (on vinyl);

the swirling melodic keyboards and nagging guitar of Bernard Sumner. Curtis committed suicide in May 1980, just before the band was to leave for their first American tour. Curtis's universal themes of emotional distance and self-doubt – and the music being not time-locked as overtly 'post-punk' – means Joy Division will always find a new audience. For years, New Order would hardly touch the Joy Division era live in concert, only recanting in the early '00s – they'd spent years forging a new identity. With Music: Complete it all comes full circle again.

their essential Still collection of unreleased studio material and the live recording of their final show at Birmingham University a fortnight before Curtis's suicide (double vinyl); and the Substance collection of B-sides and such on CD and double vinyl. By most measures, Joy Division were a rare band. In the hands of Hannett, their spare, cavernous sound was between post-punk and ever-present innovations in disco, with the emphasis on Stephen Morris's powerful driving beat, the bass of Peter Hook mixed high like a lead guitar, and

Q1/ How does one pronounce the name of the band, and how did it come about? It's 'Geng-ar' – we basically stole it from Pokemon and changed the spelling. We were called 'Res' when we put our demos online. When they started to attract some heat, we got an email from a rapper called Res saying ‘oh, I see you have the same name as me?’ So we had to change it. We gave ourselves two days to come up with a new name. We figured all the cool names had been taken and it had gotten down to putting two cool words together. That sounded pretentious, so we just thought we’d go with something silly; we weren’t taking ourselves too seriously. Q2/ You were all at school together: what bands did you grow up listening to? We were just told we’ll be playing with The Strokes at Hyde Park: if you’d have told 18-year-old me that I’d be doing that, I never would have believed it. My taste is more varied: I was into punk and metal. You can shed your skin entirely, that’s the nature of being young and playing music. I now listen to an array of stuff – Ariel Pink, Connan Moccasin, Kurt Vile, Deerhunter is a favourite. You am I, Tame Impala... people who do interesting things with guitars. Q3/ So lots of Australian and NZ music? We weren’t listening to much UK music when we were writing this album, we were listening to lot more US and Australian and NZ music. Pavement, Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth were huge for us as well. We write pop, but it comes from a darker place. Q4/ You're all ex-art school mates, is that why the videos and artwork are so distinctive? We’ve got a strong handle on that side of things. It’s all meaningful. I work in a very visual way with the lyrics when I’m writing. It’s a privilege to make art and music at the same time. I’ve done the treatments for all our clips, except the first one that was done by a child. I just oversaw it. I met this smart kid Nico, at a summer camp where I was. I found his parents and asked if they'd let him make a video. He wrote the treatment out, cast all his friends, and shot it.

G in Wigmore’s upcoming album Blood to Bone (originally slated for late June but now being released in late August) is her first in four years, coming four years after 2011’s Gravel and Wine . Now living in LA, Wigmore has been digesting influences as diverse as Portishead and Alt-J (the album’s single, New Rush , was co-written by Alt-J producer Charlie Rush). The clip for the single was met with some wigmore's blood to bone for august

consternation when released online; it depicts a bleeding Wigmore with an arrow in her guts struggling through a desolate landscape. Think The Hunger Games , but shot by Anton Corbijn.

Blood to Bone by Gin Wigmore is now out via Universal August 28

nina simone revisited

R obert Glasper and Ms. Lauryn Hill are just two notable talents paying tribute to the remarkable Nina Simone on a new project being released this month. Nina Revisited: A Tribute to Nina Simone is being released in conjunction with a new documentary on the late pianist and singer, entitled What Happened, Miss Simone? The film has been created with the full cooperation of the late singer's estate, with her daughter Lisa Simone working in

full collaboration with the film's producers. Lisa Simone also features on the tribute album, as do Common, Mary J Blige, Gregory Porter and Usher, and Nina Simone herself (on the closing track I Wish I Knew How I Would Feel to Be Free. Angela Davis, the '60s/'70s civil rights icon has penned liner notes in support of the album. The graphic cover art references a red balloon Ms. Simone brought to Marin County Jail when she visited a then incarcerated Davis in 1971.

Nina Revisted: A Tribute to Nina Simone is released on July 10 via Sony Music.

A Dream Outside by Gengahr is out on Liberator/ Universal

JULY 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

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