Last night New Order's majestic album Power, Corruption & Lies was the subject of a listening party on Twitter.
Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris represented for New Order while photographer Kevin Cummins shared candid photos and organizer/tweeter-in-chief Tim Burgess offered up thoughts and feelings about the beloved album.
Besides the music (of course), Stephen Morris was the star of the show and truly shined with his commentary and vintage photos - it was such a joy and a treat for him to share fascinating kernels about New Order's stunning and brilliant crown jewel.
If you missed the action view Morris' tweets from last night below or head here to read his archive. FYI, Gillian only shared two tweets which are also interspersed below.
For more info on Tim Burgess' listening parties head here.
And we’re off Age of Consent, A great place to start.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Every song we’d ever done was a search for the elusive Fast dancy number. We definitely found it with this one!!!
One of those songs that you knew was going to be great from the word go. #timstwitterlisteningparty
Age Of Consent -An uplifting happy/ sad song- like all the best ones are.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
An easy one to record this- No sequencers or Drum machines to break down. probably the most recently finished when we began recording which made it fresh and exciting #timstwitterlisteningparty
Hooky’s bass riff on Age Of Consent is fantastic. The drums are recycled from an old song-see if you can guess which one. Clue it was one of ours.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Athens 19th September 1982 featured a spirited version of Age Of Consent— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
For me playing this song live is always a bit of an endurance test . I just start playing as fast as I can and don’t stop,It usually works pic.twitter.com/ZTHrZ3MKf6
We All Stand had been around for a while before we went into Britannia Row. Live it could be an atmospheric jam that was either tremendous or not depending on how well we manged to lock in with the groove of the sequencer. No idea where the title came from— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
In October 82 we headed down to London to start recording— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
We lived in a flat on Basil St, Kensington, the four of us and Rob. Very handy for the shops. Sadly the studio was in Islington-the other side of town not so handy for that.#timstwitterlisteningparty
On WE All Stand Hooky does a fretless bass thing, Gillian and Bernard guitars while I do my best at some not quite Dub style drumming- the whole track was one that Rob Gretton would frequently ask Mike Johnson to “dub up” a bit— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
W.A.S at Kilkenny pic pic.twitter.com/UDnhHuE1yg
The album’s title is taken from the blurb on the back of an Orwell book-Hooky was reading 1984,there is a tale on the net that it comes from a visit to a German art gallery. But it’s not true— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
In 1982 I don’t think any of us apart from Gillian spent much time in art Galleries.
THE VILLAGE— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
I am not a number
Working title New Fast One- Eventually replaced with something inspired by the Prisoner, though I’m not entirely sure why- we all loved Patrick McGoohan’s number 6 that’s most likely the reason
The Village is the one song on PCL that seems to reference the cover with the flowers though that was complete coincidence. The first song we wrote with more than one sequenced bass line in it. #timstwitterlisteningparty pic.twitter.com/1CHlNTFYck— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Live versions of the Village were usually hit and miss- mostly miss. We could never get the sequences to change in the right place-most of the time. A chorus would come in half way through a verse and we’d all go out of sync with each other #timstwitterlisteningparty— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
The Other Two In a Fellini kind of mood— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Day off in Taranto June 1982 pic.twitter.com/oVj8P7sydD
586 had been around since the start of 82, we originally did it on the old set up of Clef master rhythm Drum box, Powertran sequencer and the Pro-one synth like the video 586 and Peel session versions.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
The old drum machine was a modded version of this pic.twitter.com/3OuWymSvbe
Talking of Numbers- Some old keyboard notes -They must have made sense at the time pic.twitter.com/L2wJj8dO1C— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Recording 586 We re-did everything on the new gear with the DMX drum machine and the Emulator sampler. The emulator does the choir sounds and I did my best to translate whatever I’d been doing live into the DMX . Fancy tape editing by Mike Johnson. #timstwitterlisteningparty— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
All the music for PCL came first, the lyrics second ,It’s always been that way. On 586 though Bernard had already got most of the lyrics by the time we did the Peel Session version. #timstwitterlisteningparty— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Hacienda 1982 pic.twitter.com/hW7suBAO7E— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Everyone having fun? Where’s the bar?— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Love this synth guitar solo mr B ha ha #timstwitterlisteningparty— Gillian Morris (@gillian_gilbert) April 12, 2020
The new drum machine. The mighty Oberheim DMX— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Funky but not particularly stable like most great drummers #timstwitterlisteningparty pic.twitter.com/dGGh0L0EaQ
YOUR SILENT FACE— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
We’ve always loved Kraftwerk. YSF’s working title was “the Kraftwerk one” (KW1) we were trying to do something like the intro of Europe Endless.That kind of sparkly sound. Bernard worked really hard getting the synth parts just right
On YSF the Bernard’s Melodica get another outing.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
it was along with BM a song we had to figure out how to play live. As soon as we got to Australia straight after leaving Brit row.
Here are Bernard and Gillian at the Hac in 82 #timstwitterlisteningparty pic.twitter.com/iPdUHIQWjz
Your Silent Face soon evolved into something beautiful and majestic- we were afraid we might getting too serious, a problem easily solved by the “why don’t you Piss Off” line. You’d never catch Kraftwerk swearing #timstwitterlisteningparty— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Early instrumental versions of Your Silent Face were a lot more guitary, more Morricone spaghetti western than Kraftwerk— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
It still gets referred to as KW1 to this day
Features Heavy use of the Korg delay and the Roland space echo
ULTRAVIOLENCE— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
We had the title for this one before we even had the idea for the song. We had a cassette of the Clockwork Orange soundtrack. That got played a lot on the way to gigs.A big influence of some of sounds on PCL #timstwitterlisteningparty
With the drums on Ultraviolence.I was trying to do something like Beefheart’s Floppy boot stomp off Bat Chain Puller-A dark swampy kind of beat. Don’t tell anyone will you #timstwitterlisteningparty— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
A fun night at the Rose Hill hotel in Kilkenny 83 photo by Dec Hickey pic.twitter.com/tlpFcPJbG3— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
As used on Ultraviolence. Best drum synth ever-got a lot of abuse as you can probably tell.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Ultraviolence Live could get ferocious at times pic.twitter.com/BI5aOEetBc
ECSTACY— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
I really can’t say where the title came from, let’s just sat we were ahead of our time in many respects and move on. It was for a brief time known as only the lonely.#timstwitterlisteningparties
We had two interesting instrumentals- Murder and Ecstacy on which Bernard possibly inspired by Giorgio Moroder’s E=MC squared- pulled out his freshly built box of tricks the Powertran ETI vocoder- for singing through .we should have been sponsored by Powertran!! pic.twitter.com/krncMBQjxp— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
The Vocoder itself died of shame after its appearance on New Order’s 82 Hacienda Xmas flexi disc. A record Guaranteed to ruin anyone’s xmas. I think it was one of Tony’s or our dafter ideas.#timstwitterlisteningparties— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Here’s Lita and Lindsay from Stockholm Monsters with Rob in Paris ( or Brussels) April 1982.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
I’ve got a cob on cos I’m stuck carrying that bloody video gear again. Well I suppose it was my idea.
Nice ankles Steve!! pic.twitter.com/wAugRgy8dx
LEAVE ME ALONE— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
I really like the way that PCL is bracketed by the two most guitary songs Age of Consent and this one. This song is a personal favourite of mine I’ve got to say
The album’s only completely synth-less track Hooky’s ace bass riff and Bernard and Gillian doing what they used to call trading licks on the guitar. I think it’s a really emotional song.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Live these changes could happen randomly most of the time #timstwitterlisteningparties
We Must get this back ! #timstwitterlisteningparty— Gillian Morris (@gillian_gilbert) April 12, 2020
Leave me alone was the first idea we wrote of the batch that made PCL- like most of the record it didn’t have proper words apart from the thousand islands bit until we recorded it.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
It went under the working title of Darkest Nite (sic) or Dark Nights- it got played rarely
On Leave Me Alone I thought the way I turned the beat around was very clever at the time-it’s pretty good today come to that.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
For these last few days.......
It really is the perfect way to end the album #timstwitterlisteningparties
Phew let’s take a short break before we recommence with popular tune back in a mo— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Touring was tough in the 80s Trevi Fountain Hi-Jinx Roma June 1982 La Dolce Vita.We had so much fun on that Italian tour!Probably why it took us so long to go back pic.twitter.com/a0M06MhAFA— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Ok everyone let’s turn on the DMX— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Start the Drum machine for blue fuckn Monday
5
4
3
2
1
Go,,,,,,,,,
Blue Monday!!— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Ok if you insist
What can I say about this that hasn’t already been said?
A song that isn’t really a song more a machine that makes you dance.
We really REALLY hit our stride on this one
Blue Monday- Originally an attempt to do an automated encore .— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Until Bernard started singing on it and Hooky did the signature spaghetti western bass.
Rob would rave about this track although I don’t think the rest of us could quite see why.
It was really hard work to write!
Factory Xmas awards? For blue Monday sales pic.twitter.com/Lpn4VLjZ6c— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
I like what @simonday24 says about Blue Monday in his book Comedy and Error— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
“An indescribable mix of robotic joy and human sadness that came from the future and took over the planet”
Kind of sums it up
The old sequencer was a modified version of the powertran 1024 composer.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
586 got its title at the Peel sessions recording earlier in 82. The numbers are how many times each riff should play. No hidden significance. 5 is an odd number musically though.Think it was 4 plus 1 count? pic.twitter.com/2CFuvXiGJA
Extract from Gillian’s Blue Monday programming scroll. It stretched the entire length of the Brit row snooker table #timstwitterlisteningparties pic.twitter.com/mah6xfQFSN— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Too long for the album Blue Monday was ALWAYS going to be the single.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Too long for a single too come to think
Title inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions
We wouldn’t consider editing it down.
They did in Poland though apparently #timstwitterlisteningparties
Me at the emulator— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
I wonder what’s in that bottle? My bet would be Pernod pic.twitter.com/sz3igDhBF1
After we left the studio Bernard claimed Blue Monday would be impossible to play live.— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
But we did AND we cut it down for our “singing live playing live” Top of the Pop debut...”great tv” was how Tony Wilson described it??#timstwitterlisteningparties
Wow that went quick hope you all enjoyed it take care of yourselves wherever you are!— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
This too will pass xxx
The beach always reminds me of crimewatch— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 12, 2020
Don’t have nightmares
PS from last nights listening party— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 13, 2020
The other instrumental we had for PCL was the lovely ditty called Murder which was my favourite -more drums of course.
But democracy won the day and Murder was shelved until Thieves like us was done the following year
Murder was also the track where Bernard took to wearing Mike Johnson’s white lab coat whilst using an improvised whip-a drum stick,gaffa tape and rope for the sampled crack sounds— stephen morris (@stephenpdmorris) April 13, 2020
Peter Saville wanted some art that might reflect the darkness of the title. He found a postcard of this Fantin-Latour painting of flowers (from 1890). It wasn't dark but he says he realised its “subversively enigmatic suitability”. He's a marvel! #timstwitterlisteningparty pic.twitter.com/fyR9UTP3b1— Dave Haslam (@Mr_Dave_Haslam) April 12, 2020
#timstwitterlisteningparty— Tim Burgess (@Tim_Burgess) April 12, 2020
I DJ’d with Peter Saville in Los Angeles. I took my copy of Power, Corruption & Lies and asked him to sign it. In true Peter Saville style, he said he wouldn’t write on the cover, as it was ‘perfect as it is” - so he signed the inner sleeve instead ; ) pic.twitter.com/iuf6YXLD1M
The following day @neworder were supposed to do an interview & photo session for Rolling Stone. A big deal then (their first). None of them could be bothered. It was set up on the roof of the club but 'some' weren't really fit for it #timstwitterlisteningparty @gillian_gilbert pic.twitter.com/M62U7YDnvN— Kevin Cummins (@KCMANC) April 12, 2020
Rolling Stone's photographer asked me & Rob and a couple of others to 'be' @neworder . He said, "Nobody knows what they look like. We can make it a bit shadowy." Rob told him to Fuck off. #timstwitterlisteningparty He left his backdrop out, so @gillian_gilbert posed on it for me pic.twitter.com/ZKbbyIzX0A— Kevin Cummins (@KCMANC) April 12, 2020
Here's Bernard pretending to be cooperative with another photographer - I took this while she was photographing him #timstwitterlisteningparty @gillian_gilbert @neworder pic.twitter.com/Ove0NaXeCs— Kevin Cummins (@KCMANC) April 12, 2020