Well another year almost gone... it's got to be said that 2014 was pretty busy for both the current line-up of New Order and Peter Hook & The Light. From NO we got two new songs played on a North American tour, Bernard's autobiography and a freshly inked record deal with Daniel Miller's Mute Records. The Light showed no signs of slowing down with an intensive touring schedule as well as playing Low-Life/Brotherhood material for the first time. They rounded off the year with a multi-disc live set while signalling further Unknown Pleasures shows to come.

For collectors there were re-releases of both Joy Division's "An Ideal For Living" and New Order's 1981-1982 EPs as well as Permanence, a deluxe collection of Ian's lyrics. We even got a new Other Two remix (!)

Clearly all sides seem to be in rude health when it comes to sheer output at the moment, possibly more so than we ever saw in the 2000-10 era. Despite the unfortunate legal wrangling I can't recall too many years with this sheer level of activity aside from maybe er, 2013

Any fan predictions for 2015?

Obviously a new album, as well as high expectations for the music expecting a well packaged album with a limited vinyl release as I always prefer the vinyl still. Some special one off uk performances to promote the album at some interesting locations. It would be great if one of the new tracks is remixed by my over musical obsession underground resistance from Detroit. If any female vocals on the new album they should let Gillian do them! Unfortunately there will be more bad words between the band and Hooky, in an ideal world Hooky will join them on stage and the last date of the new tour, shake hands, pick up the bass and burst into age of consent

Possible: Stu Price 1, BL 2, O2 3, NO 10.
Likely: New Order keep touring and bullshitting about new stuff for Christmas. Forum users dribble every time Bernard says the words 'new' and 'material' in the same decade.
Likeliest: New Order keep touring. The Light do 8-year-long gigs every day. Paul Morely keeps writing bollox.
When they first touted a new release I suggested 2015 at the very earliest and the reaction was generally, Don't piss on my bonfire you whinging git. It has to be...
My predictions:
Hooky attempts a 26-hour gig every day and goes into a time warp. He does every single Warsaw - JD - NO - Revenge - Monaco - Freebass - one-off collaboration, including 'The Trouble With Girls' featuring Jack on backing vocals, and when he reaches 'Lost Sirens' he takes a three-second breather and then starts all over again. This leaves him with 3 free seconds a day: he spends 2.999999 of them slagging off NO and the rest on beauty sleep. By Summer he gets bored of calling Bernard 'Twatto' and starts calling him 'Cunthole' instead.
NO do essentially the same set at extravagant (i.e. fucking expensive) festivals. Every four months they dig out an oldie and every eight months they showcase a newbie and this makes the fans disproportionately overjoyed.
NO sign to Parlophone, leading to 36 articles, 37 forum threads and no new releases. Instead they put out 'Scrotal: From JD to the Other Two', which is unique as it's the only compilation to include 'Tasty Fish'. It comes in a limited edition of 57530462876549987544333369000776787936284631857444609875457654825046174836274194628 copies for a limited period of 528 decades, with 539-page liner notes by Paul Morely, 'Schopenhauer, Sylvia Plath and Socrates: New Order's 'Jetstream'.'
Gillian manages to say a whole sentence without giggling, looking at the floor and wiping her hand across her forehead. Stephen looks an interviewer in the face and writes his autobiography, 'I am Monkey'.
Faber and Faber and Faber publish 'Perm My Hair: The Collected Notebooks of Bernard Sumner', a fascinating insight into the creative progress from 'What are you doing?' through 'Wotcher doing?' to 'Wotcher doin'?'
Record Day sees the Christmas flexi rereleased on vinyl in June and people spend £73.62 on it even though it's shit, you can hear it for zilch on Youtube anyway and no one's had a turn-table since 1639.
Rocket Mick forgets to say 'Thank you' for a post.

Edited by user 31 December 2014 04:14:29(UTC)  | Reason: Stuff I forgot

Obviously all supposition but I reckon:

Regarding the new album, it will be interesting to see how Mute handles the new releases versus the old days of Warners. As this is a self-professed "synth-driven" album I would imagine there could be at least 3 singles backed with a healthy crop of remixes, possibly from artists on the Mute roster (Goldfrapp, Soulsavers, Moby, Maps etc). I don't know if any label bothers releasing singles on CD any more but as long as there are HQ digital versions and maybe a 12" vinyl for DJs I don't think most people will care. Singularity as the first single perhaps? I'd also suspect the album would be a dead cert for vinyl because as a medium it's still very much in vogue. Also wouldn't be surprised to see a "limited edition deluxe box set" being offered, Bad Loot had their one five years ago.

I'm guessing no b-sides or at least not in the traditional sense, there may be a few "non-album tracks" bundled with any deluxe version as tends to be the way these days.

As for The Light, they've come this far with the chronological album shows so Technique is probably next. They're a solid live outfit so I doubt they will have any problems recreating the album and surrounding songs convincingly. Was "Don't Do It" ever played live by NO? I don't think so. That song has the potential to be stretched out into a bit of a mammoth jam...

Edited by user 30 December 2014 07:28:37(UTC)  | Reason: Tidy up.

I can't help thinking that you were taking inspiration from the post below yours on this subject...

Well he would say that - hardly gonna say, 'Yeah, it's shit. Worry.' In '95 he said the 'Lec sophomore would be great - I thought it was crap. As everyone on this forum knows, the first two tracks have been aired live; UTH was originally with Digitalism (http://www.neworderonline.com/Forums/MessageList.aspx?ThreadID=49233).
Did he say WHICH Autumn?
Maybe there'll be public signings with Bernard. And for an extra grand, public ripping-it-into-tiny-pieces-and-burning-them-and-urinating-on-the-ashes with a certain bassist who shall go un-named called Peter Hook.

Edited by user 03 January 2015 01:49:34(UTC)  | Reason: Extra