Needle Time

  New Order - Sub-Culture [FAC 133 UK 1985 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] I have known to be rather damning in the past regarding New Order's decision to allow John Robie to screw around with the fine Sub-Culture from their 1985 album Low-Life . I used phrases like ' steaming bucket of pish ' to describe his efforts when I last ripped this record back in 2015. It's not that bad is it? Well, we understand that Peter Saville refused to design a sleeve for this single and the introduction of backing singers was very un-New Order, the constant unnecessary effects which run throughout do their worst to hide what is a very catchy hi-energy pop song. A remix of the song with some of the more basic new overdubs would have sufficed in my book, I'm not sure I need constant samples of backing singers chanting ' one of these days ....'. As one blog-follower kindly put it back then, this single was not mixed for the UK market, instead it was remixed for the New York dancefloor ...

  New Order - Round & Round [FAC 263 UK 1989 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] As revered and loved in Manchester as Anthony H. Wilson was, he occasionally (probably more like often) got things wrong. Keen to re-discover singles chart success after the zillion-selling True Faith , after a number of faltering follow-ups, Wilson over-ruled the band members and insisted that New Order would release Round & Round from the Technique album as a single. Despite all the personal promotion by Wilson, a multitude of press adds, an expensive but dull promo video and a plethora of formats & remixes, the single peaked at number 21 in the the UK and number 64 in the USA. Backed with the instrumental theme from Granada TV's football chat show, Best & Marsh .  Round & Round is a fine electronic pop-dance album track however as history regularly reminds us, Vanishing Point would have been a much better choice. A1 Round & Round B1 Best & Marsh

  New Order - True Faith (Remix) [12" WL FAC 183R UK 1987 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] New Order fans join the allegiance at varying times during the band's career, this single was likely responsible for a whole new age group of fans in the late eighties, let's call them the Technique generation, some of you may well have been there from the start, right from the Joy Division days, I guess I am a part of the Temptation generation. Here is the Shep Pettibone remix version of True Faith ripped from penguinflight's white label (actually make that a pink label) copy in lush 176.4kHz high definition flac for the first time.  Enjoy. A1  True Faith (Remix) B1  True Dub

  New Order - Murder [FBN 22 BEL 1984 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] New Order's Murder was an instrumental track recorded as part of the Power, Corruption & Lies sessions at Britannia Row Studios. The pounding drums and dark themes would never have fitted with the band's second album, so the track was donated to the Factory Benelux division as a one off single to accompany the Thieves Like Us main single release. The track also features samples from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Roman-period porn-epic Caligula. A quite different instrumental mix of Thieves Like Us features on the b-side, with extra detail and effects, including a sequencer line not featured on the original. It will be a patchy ten days or so for new posts on Needle Time & Digitalia as I am away dealing with other matters. I'll try to post when I can, but normal service should return later next week. A1 Murder B1 Thieves Like Us (Instrumental)

  New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies [FACT 75 UK 1983 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] I've been wanting to upgrade the May 2020 rip of my original UK pressing of this album for a while. This rip has been a work-in-progress for a few months, so after a combination of surfactant, distilled water, attrition, multiple runs through the ultrasonic and just a wee bit (an under-exaggeration) of manual declickage, it would be an underestimation to say that I am now pleased with the results. This rip is for all you who have taken the time to contribute or donate to Needle Time. The site is fast approaching two million hits and with approx 2000 unique visits per day, I am extremely grateful to the small percentage who take the time to participate. New Order's second full album, Power, Corruption & Lies is an important, but not flawless, record from an important time in my life which still stands proud in my collection. This is a rip from my original pressing bought in the Newcastle bran...

  New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle [FAC 163 UK 1986 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] The Mancunian four-piece seemed to initially struggle for ideas in the post- Low Life years with a couple of weak singles, including a badly conceived remix of Subculture . However,as a live band, I would suggest they were at their very best. Bizarre Love Triangle was a return to form in November 1986, remixed and extended from the version on the Brotherhood album by Shep Pettibone and The Latin Rascals, this single is an uplifting twelve inch slab of Mancunian synthpop which remains a live favourite all these decades later. Remarkably it never sold well and only peaked at number 56 in the UK charts.  Here is a brand new presentation (I think I last ripped the single in February 2015), lovingly extracted from my original UK vinyl pressing. A1 Bizarre Love Triangle B1 Bizarre Dub Triangle

  Electronic - Electronic [FACT 290 UK 1991 24-Bit 176.4 kHz FLAC] Many of you have been asking for a new rip of the debut album by Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr's Electronic project (with a little bit of help from The Pet Shop Boys), so here you are ...in full glorious 176.4kHz quality. Quite possibly the pinnacle of British synth pop, once of course you get over Bernard's rapping on Idiot Country ? Could this (or should this) have really been a New Order album? It does seem to fit quite well between Technique and Republic .  Anyway, enough of the questions, I'll just let you all get on with remembering how you felt when you heard the Electronic album for the very first time. A1   Idiot Country A2   Reality A3   Tighten Up A4   The Patience Of A Saint A5   Gangster B1   Soviet B2   Get The Message B3   Try All You Want B4   Some Distant Memory B5   Feel Every Beat

  New Order - 1981-1982 [FACTUS 8 USA 1982 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] Last ripped back in March 2021, I always thought this could be improved, so here in full glorious resolution is my original pressing of the FACTUS 8 compilation, mastered and pressed at Record Technology Incorporated. This is likely my best sounding rip of Temptation , whereas Hurt always sounds overloaded towards the end, but I can blame the band for that. Procession will sadly be one of New Order's forgotten singles as the more electronic b-side,  Everything's Gone Green got all the attention and was released in more versions, however it is one of their best from the early period. It took many a while to work out Mesh from Cries & Whispers , and it will always be of Martin Hannett's best New Order productions. A1 Everything's Gone Green A2 Procession A3 Mesh B1 Temptation B2 Hurt

  New Order - Ceremony [FAC 33/12 UK 1981 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] Until today, I have never ripped & published my original UK Factory Records A1/B1 twelve inch of Ceremony . I've had a few goes in the past, and abandoned for one reason or another. Likely purchased at PJ Swales (the record and TV shop owned by the then Manchester City chairman) in Altrincham, Cheshire or just up the street at Gordon's Records ...my memory remains a bit fuzzy about where, but who cares? I do recall that the infamous 'Check-In' nightclub was just across the street. I don't own the later re-recorded version with Gillian, this is the original three piece doing reinterpretations of some of the last songs written by Ian Curtis before he took his own life in May 1980. That's all history, and everything went downhill from here on..... A1 Ceremony B1 In A Lonely Place

  New Order - Low-Life [RTD30/FACT 100 DEU 1985 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] On the 4th January 2023, Bernard Sumner turned 67 years of age (happy birthday Barney) and on the 27th January 2023, Warner Music release the 'Definitive Edition' of New Order's classic album Low-Life .  I am still a little torn about the need to purchase the forthcoming LP+CD+CD+DVD+DVD+Book in a box, firstly the label are a little coy about the source for the new vinyl edition, I certainly don't need the 2016 CD remaster, the session tracks and demos do interest me, but most of the live shows I already have in one form or another. I stopped being a New Order completist after Brotherhood and restrained myself from buying the earlier Movement & P.C.L. boxsets, however for me Low-Life is New Order's best album.   I ripped an original onion-skin 1985 UK vinyl copy back in January 2021. For those who missed it back then and would like to compare, a new link is here . Now we get a chance to co...

  New Order - The Perfect Kiss [FAC 123 UK 1985 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] If you feel the need, Warners are going to release the remastered Low-Life era singles. Here is a brand new rip of a super clean original Factory Records 12" which was released and purchased by me on May 13th 1985, the very same day that Low-Life was released, and this was the first New Order single to appear on an album. For me this record defines a moment in an important time in my life, I was just about to finish college, I was strapped for cash and still managed to rustle up enough dough to buy New Order singles and albums on day of release. A few months later, I would start a career in music buying & sales and then not have to worry about cash for vinyl, well at least until the turn of the decade. Likely the most complete New Order single from possibly my favourite New Order album, I first heard the track in January at the band's one-off gig at a sports centre in Islington, London on a freezing co...

  New Order - Music Complete [BXSTUMM390 UK 2015 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] I stopped buying New Order records in 1986, effectively I had fallen out of love after Low-Life, however religiously bought the follow-up singles, but for the first time, began to look for (and find) flaws. I had a pre-release tape of Brotherhood (which I really enjoyed) but the final album lacked the edge of the live versions I had become accustomed to. Everything since has been on compact disc (most unplayed for decades), charity shop purchases, second hand bargain vinyl finds or blog donations. But I bought the Music Complete box-set? For me, this is not a New Order album. there is something missing, some of you will understand, others may not. For me this is a Bernard Sumner album with associated musicians, most of whom do exactly as they are told. There are one or two moments which would remind you of New Order, it is best to ignore those and think of a different band. Before anybody asks, I do not ...

  New Order - Thieves Like Us [FAC 103 UK 1984 24-Bit 88.2/176.4kHz FLAC] For me, New Order's best moments came along in the years between (and including) the Power, Corruption & Lies and Low-Life albums. Thieves Like Us was the first single since Confusion  (hardly their greatest effort) and marked the beginning a move to more cohesive song writing period with Low-Life at it's peak.  Up to a point in time, New Order made great b-sides and this single has one of their very best, so much so that Lonesome Tonight could well have been a hit single in its own right. The art of the b-side is from a time long gone - Manchester's finest were one of the greatest exponents of the craft. I've ripped this original single before, however I thought now it deserved a proper clean and then a post in a choice of resolutions.  A1 Thieves Like Us B1 Lonesome Tonight Barnie & His Bum Notes live at The Hacienda

  New Order - Movement [FACT 50 UK 1980 24-Bit FLAC] Continuing a run of new rips of classic Factory Records releases, my copy of Movement is the A2 GG Town House pressing on opaque black/brown vinyl complete with the anvil-styled poly-lined inner bag - I guess that makes is the first edition as according to Discogs, there was no A1 pressing. On Movement, he resisted the urge to add his trademark space, delay and depth into the mix, in-turn the band say they hate what he did and this album marked the end of their relationship in the studio. The album took seven months to record, spread out over a number of sessions and it shows.  If you examine the early New Order time line, you will know that the band had sequentially moved on as Everything's Gone Green appeared on the flipside of their second single in September 1981, two months before Movement hit the shops. Temptation (or is that Taboo Number One ?) was being performed live as early as the autumn of 1981. There are sec...

  EnglandNewOrder - World In Motion [FAC 293 UK 1990 24-Bit FLAC] It is time for English football's biannual date with destiny.... the hopes of the southern part of the British Isles rest in the feet of eleven young men and a young manager, and yes, it's against a mullet free Germany. It is time for yet another golden generation and expectation is as always, very high. It was the same for Italia '90, you know, pre-turnips, Gazza's tears and all that ....and another glorious failure. Perhaps it is time to abandon that '66 spirit, those days are long gone. May the best team win. In 1990, the idea of a crass football song was abandoned in favour of getting New Order to collaborate and add a bit of credibility. World In Motion was originally released in these two versions, the better known single version featuring a chunk of the English team and that infamous John Barnes' rap, recorded at Mayfair Studios in London with Hooky's pal Stephen Hague. The b-side ver...

  New Order - 1981-1982 [FACTUS 8 USA 1982 24-Bit FLAC] Take a thirty-nine year old record, give it a damn good clean, read up and absorb details on the complex relationship between cartridge and phono preamp, you know - gain, impedance & capacitance and all that, then make the adjustments which your fifty-four year old well worn eardrums think sound best ....and finally rip! This was probably not the best source material, especially considering that the band were learning to self-produce during the b-side tracks, however I am pleased with the results. I have never really noticed those few seconds of studio ambience at the start of  Everything's Gone Green before, this is likely my best sounding rip of Temptation , whereas Hurt always sounds overloaded towards the end, but I can blame the band for that. Judge for yourselves. A1 Everything's Gone Green A2 Procession A3 Mesh B1 Temptation B2 Hurt

  New Order - Brotherhood [FACT 150 UK 1986 24-Bit FLAC] Never revered or adored as much as Low-Life or Technique , Brotherhood seems almost a forgotten album these days. It was their fourth and as we know now from Steve Morris's books, the band were beginning to suffer from writer's block and eventually internal disagreements. However, this is the album which truly exemplifies their signature guitar and bass sound more than any other, and possibly the last where we got to fully appreciate Peter Hook's highly strung bass. Personally, it was the last New Order album I loved from beginning to end. Bizarre Love Triangle is a marvelous single and easily stands out, as well as being the main electronic track on the record. There are plenty of other highlights, none better than the eclectically sparkling  All Day Long . Every little bit of surface crackle counts, but it's not really that bad for a thirty-four year old record. Lindsay Lohan was born in 1986, and this recor...

  New Order - Blue Monday [FAC 73 UK 1983 24-Bit FLAC] Just in case you also feel damaged by that last post .....this is for you! I still remember hearing Blue Monday for the very first time on Peel and subsequently buying a copy on the morning of release. This is that very copy, cleaned up and represented here in full glorious high resolution. A1  Blue Monday B1  The Beach For your amusement, here is a YouTube influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers, hearing the track for the very first time, just a few weeks back!

  New Order - Blue Monday 1988 [0-20869 USA 1988 24-Bit FLAC] The latest Stephen Morris book ( a highly recommended read) gives us an insight as to why New Order felt the need to screw about with Blue Monday - I am no fan of this version, I dislike the guitar, the samples and the general messiness of the whole concept. I'd bet the bearded one wasn't too happy that his distinctive basslines were pushed right back in the mix as well. Anyway, this American pressing is saved by the two mixes of   Touched By The Hand Of God which adorn the b-side. This single has sat ignored and unloved in the penguinflight boxes for nearly five years now, so here you are ....if you need to hear it again. A1 Blue Monday 1988 A2 Blue Monday 1988 (Dub) B1 Touched By The Hand Of God (Remix) B2 Touched By The Hand Of God (Dub)

  New Order - Low-Life [FACT 100 UK 1985 24-Bit FLAC] Do you still remember what you were doing on Monday 13th May 1985?  I do ...and I imagine many others will do as well. I was late for college that day, I needed to be somewhere first, my first lecture was at 9:30am and the small independent record shop in the town opened at 9:00am. New Order's third album, Low-Life was released that day, along with their shiny new silver-bound twelve inch single, The Perfect Kiss . These were the times when you had no clue what the sleeve would look like, thankfully the album in it's clever onion-skin wrap around sleeve jumped out of the racks, however the single was a little more difficult to identify. Within minutes, a week's worth of lunch/fag money had been blown. I still have both, now a little worn in places, so a top notch condition second-hand copy of the original album pressing was secured for the purposes of this post. Low-Life is almost flawless, there are very few flawless...