When Peter Hook announced he was no longer working with Bernard Sumner and New Order in 2007, no one would’ve predicted the mud-slinging that ensued. Since then, even the most die-hard fans would admit the chances of new material from the English music legends are slim. That is, until now.
As music blogger Alan Cross points out, a New Order album featuring Peter Hook is on the way. But no, the Sumner and Hook haven’t settled their differences, the record is simply a compilation of leftover tracks from when Hook was still in the band.
Entitled The Lost Sirens, the eight track release is being readied to drop in January 2013 and contains material that was written and recorded while the band were making their 2005 studio album, Waiting For The Sirens Call. On a side note, obviously somebody (the band, the record company) has cleared this release. If Hook wasn’t consulted, you can probably expect some fiery comments in the weeks to come.
“Lost Sirens? Well, it’s not really lost,” drummer Stephen Morris said in a statement (via NME). “I remember that Martin Hannett [Joy Division/New Order producer] once had an idea of making a record and burying it in his garden, so that one day someone would dig it up, like a time capsule. We just stuck our record in a cupboard. And now we’ve got it out.”
“When we did the first one [Waiting For The Sirens Call] we had 20 ideas for songs – we were going through a particularly prolific phase – but we couldn’t make a double concept album out of them all, so we thought we’d just do two instead,” says Morris.
“When we unearthed it from the cupboard recently, with the intention of re-editing some of the songs, we all agreed they didn’t actually need it, and it should just be out there. So here it is.”“When we did the first one [Waiting For The Sirens Call] we had 20 ideas for songs – we were going through a particularly prolific phase…” – Stephen Morris, New Order
Since Hook’s departure in 2007, the ongoing feud between Hook and Sumner has been well-documented in the press. Both have used interviews to snipe at each other. Sumner was particularly irked by Hook’s Joy Division tour while Hook himself remains unimpressed by the New Order reunion in 2009.
He was particularly fired up when he spoke to Tone Deaf earlier in the year: “Bernard is entitled to his opinion of events and I to mine. Mine just happen to be right,” he said. “The interesting thing about this fracas is that it is in public. Most fights within bands tend to be in private, this one isn’t. This is what happens when you get stubborn people working with stubborn people.”
He added: “It’s quite sad really the way they [New Order] have gone about it, doing it all like this … but the saddest part of it is to my mind they shouldn’t be using the New Order name at all. They’ve basically said ‘We’ve done it without you, so fuck you’, but it’s business, that’s what happens, and I don’t agree with it. When Bernard and I stopped working together in 2006, I thought there’s no chance we’ll ever do this again.”
Meanwhile Sumner let off some steam back in October over Hook’s decision to tour Joy Division material. When asked by Billboard whether there would have been hope for New Order if Hook hadn’t played his ‘Unknown Pleasures’ tour, Sumner said: “Twenty million dollar question, that is. I don’t know. But we did think, why should we hold back if he’s doing that? He opened the gateways of hell.”
Sumner backed up his comments later, telling Tone Deaf last year he’d never work with Hook again: “Things have gone too far, yeah. The flogging of Pleasures is probably a point of no return.”
The Lost Sirens could be the last chance to hear a new release that features both Sumner and Hook together on record, and is due for release on January 14th 2013.
New Order – The Lost Sirens Tracklisting:
1. ‘I’ll Stay With You’
2. ‘Sugarcane’
3. ‘Recoil’
4. ‘Californian Grass’
5. ‘Hellbent’
6. ‘Shake It Up’
7. ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’
8. ‘I Told You So’
