The calendar has wrapped around again and it’s time for some more Exfiltration Radio! This time out we fall down a deep well of songs that can trace their DNA to the influence of New Order or its parent band Joy Division. There’s not so much of a thematic connection among the songs this time, though a great many of them are from post-punk bands who released these records in the early 1980s.
Instead, the unifier is the sound: prominent, melodic bass lines, drums that seem to take equal parts from shamanic quests, marching band lines and disco fills, and a whole lot of open fourths and fifths. Often (but not always) the guitar lines are clean and bright above a bed of synths, and all in all there’s that sound of a band shaking off the darkness and finding redemption in motion.
We begin where this mix did, with The Glove’s uncanny “Like an Animal.” My initial listening to this in the late summer had me doing a double take when the vocals came in, because I could swear that the instrumental was a New Order song. In reality it was the brainchild of the Cure’s Robert Smith, collaborating with Steven Severin from Siouxsie and the Banshees; the vocals are courtesy of dancer (and Banshees drummer Budgie’s ex-girlfriend) Jeannette Landry, since Smith was contractually prohibited from singing on records by anyone other than the Cure.
By contrast with The Glove, a less-known group comprised of well-known musicians, very few people seem to remember The Sound. This is surprising to me because the band’s sound feels very much like it belongs alongside New Order, Echo, Psychedelic Furs and other touchstones of the early 1980s. This song, from their 1985 fourth studio album, is the latest of the “original new wave” tracks here and is a pretty spectacular example of the genre. That rolls right into one of the two actual New Order tracks on the mix. “Dreams Never End,” from their first album, shouts back to Ian Curtis lyrics in the song “Insight” (“Guess your dreams always end”) and is one of the few NO tracks sung by bassist Peter Hook.
And Also the Trees are another one of those obscure post-punk groups, this one dating from 1984. This one sits somewhere in between Joy Division and the Cure on the spectrum of influences. Echo & The Bunnymen’s “Broke My Neck,” on the other hand, is about as dark as that group ever got, but listen to that drum part! Sometimes I think you could just listen to all the drum tracks from all these songs one after another and bliss out in the hi-hat.
The Cure, naturally, would like a word, and this brilliant anomaly in their catalog, recorded only with Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst, nevertheless fits right into the intersection of throbbing bass line (here played on a synth) and drums. The Psychedelic Furs’ Forever Now is mostly a rock album, but there are definitely touches of New Order in the bright open chords and especially that killer drum part. And Crispy Ambulance, a band fronted by Alan Hempsall, who once sat in with Joy Division while Ian Curtis was recovering from a suicide attempt (and watched the performance melt down into a riot), sound a whole lot like Joy Division on this song from their first album.
We take a breather for a few tracks with some bits that call forward the melodic side of New Order. There’s Siouxsie and Budgie’s “Miss the Girl” from their 1983 debut, and New York new wave band Tirez Tirez’s 1983 song “Real People” (which owes at least as big a debt to Talking Heads as the Manchester crowd). OMD’s “Souvenir” belies the thought that “If You Leave” was their sole influential single. And “Smiles and Laughter,” from Modern English’s first album, is a beautiful song from a messy first album.
A brace of more modern songs in this strain follow; The Stills’ “Of Montreal,” possibly named after the American indie band, has that early New Order throb about it. And razor-sharp Dum Dum Girls front woman Kristin Gundred (here Dee Dee Penny) nicked large bits from every post-punk band on 2014’s Too True, including a direct lift of that massive drum sound on this almost-title track.
We close out with a pair of tracks that follow the influences of New Order in opposite directions. “All World Cowboy Romance,” from Mission of Burma’s debut EP, is an instrumental that sits on the Joy Division side of the divide, with its open fifths, totemic drumming, and super-melodic bass line. And New Order’s own “Your Silent Face” follows the melodic sense the group always had into a strangely hopeful new future, led by that insistent melodica.
There is nothing wrong. We have taken control as to bring you this special show…
- I could dance with you until the cows come home – Groucho Marx (Duck Soup)
- Like an Animal – The Glove (Blue Sunshine)
- Total Recall – The Sound (Heads & Hearts)
- Dreams Never End – New Order (Movement [Collector’s Edition])
- Talk without words – And Also The Trees (and also the trees)
- Broke My Neck (Long Version) – Echo & The Bunnymen (Heaven Up Here (Deluxe Edition))
- The Walk – The Cure (Japanese Whispers)
- Run and Run – The Psychedelic Furs (Forever Now)
- Bardo Plane – Crispy Ambulance (The Plateau Phase (Remastered))
- Miss the Girl – The Creatures (A Bestiary of (Spectrum))
- Real People – Tirez Tirez (Story of the Year)
- Souvenir – Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark (Architecture & Morality)
- Smiles and Laughter – Modern English (Mesh & Lace)
- Of Montreal – The Stills (Logic Will Break Your Heart)
- Too True To Be Good – Dum Dum Girls (Too True)
- All World Cowboy Romance – Mission of Burma (Signals, Calls, And Marches)
- Your Silent Face (edit) – New Order (Power, Corruption, and Lies)