New Order planning fall release, ‘orchestral feel’ for first Peter Hook-less album

The members of New Order continue their slow march toward releasing their first new music recorded without co-founding bassist Peter Hook, and a new interview with Rolling Stone this past week finally took us behind the scene of the recording process and offered a look at the new record. which is now expected to be released this fall.

Frontman Bernard Sumner tells the magazine that fans can expect the album, which will be released on Mute Records, to feature a heavy electronic sound with melodic guitars and “an orchestral feel.”

He says:

“Some people may say that electronic music is cold and unromantic. That’s true in a way, but now a computer is able to translate exactly what your brain is thinking. That’s exciting. It’s what we were trying to achieve in the 1980s.”

The Rolling Stone report indicates the band has been working on new songs  on and off since 2011, but recording began in earnest this past December on what will be New Order’s first album since 2013’s Lost Sirens, which itself was a collection of Waiting For the Sirens’ Call outtakes that stands as Hook’s last recordings with the group.

There seem to be, however, conflicting reports about how much of the album has been completed. Rolling Stone says the band has completed two tracks: “Plastic,” one of two new songs debuted live last summer, and “Restless,” which features Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers.

Yet in an interview with Boston radio station 90.9 WBUR, bassist Tom Chapman — who played with Sumner in Bad Lieutenant, then replaced Hook in New Order — says the album is about 75 percent finished. He reiterates the hoped-for fall release date, and says that will be followed by touring into 2016.

Chapman, who now lives in Boston, tells the radio station:

“The last two albums were quite guitar-ish, so we made a conscious choice to work towards a more electronic-based album. We’ve already previewed two tracks last summer in the live show, ‘Plastic’ and ‘Singularity.’ They’ve gone down really well.”

Drummer Stephen Morris tells Rolling Stone the band needs a deadline: “I don’t think we’d ever finish if we didn’t have someone to tell us to stop. It’s hard to let something you’re working on go.”

PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS

• Peter Hook bringing Joy Division/New Order shows to southern U.S. next spring
• New Order teases new studio album with photo taken during mixing session
• New Order signs to Mute, heads back to studio to work on new album
• Video: New Order debuts new song ‘Plastic’ at North American tour opener in Chicago
• Here’s pro-shot video of that new New Order song — which is actually called ‘Singularity’