Fact 100 New Order Low-life
In May 1985, New Order released their third studio album, Low-life, Fact 100. One of the most acclaimed records of the post-punk era, it marked the point where the band’s fusion of rock and electronics became virtually seamless. As the band became more accessible – even chart-friendly – New Order’s sound and stark image continued to evolve, setting a template that the band would follow for the rest of their career.
Fact 100 New Order Low-life
The most obvious progression in Low-life is the songs. In previous releases, New Order had weaved instrumental experiments amongst the more conventional tracks: Low-life is more flowing, more continual, and makes a broader statement. When boiled down to its essence, that statement is that electronic-based dance music doesn’t have to be cold, distant, or robotic. With Low-life, New Order began to stake out two emotive territories - the crowded dancefloor and the lonely, isolated bedroom. Songs written from these disparate points of view seamlessly meld together, reinventing the band as a newly-complex creature, and pushing Low-life into territories only hinted at in the first two New Order albums.
Josef Müller-Brockmann Der Film Poster
The album’s sleeve, designed by Peter Saville, is the only New Order release to feature photographs of the band members on its sleeve. After some nudging by the band’s new US record company (they had recently signed to Warner Bros) to make themselves more accessible and give the band a ‘face’, New Order responded with a cover that consists of nothing but faces. A photographic portrait – by long-time Saville collaborator Trevor Key – of the drummer/keyboardist Stephen Morris is on the front cover and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert is on the back; the inside sleeve featured two more close-ups – of vocalist Bernard Sumner and bassist Peter Hook – and no information. Information such as the band name, song titles, catalogue number and album title is contained on an almost disposable semi-transparent tracing paper sleeve that wraps around the main sleeve with typography that is a direct quotation of Josef Müller-Brockmann’s Der Film poster of 1960. For the typography, Saville used the 1928 font Neuzeit. He says: “I used Neuzeit because I felt ‘new time’.” At that particular moment, Saville’s use of Neuzeit on Low-life was shocking – and groundbreaking – it also represented the beginning of Saville’s move away from the appropriation that had informed his previous work
Fac 123 New Order The Perfect Kiss
The album was preceded by the release of the full-length version of The Perfect Kiss, Fac 123, as a 12-inch single. Atypically for New Order, who had never included a single on an album before, an edited version of The Perfect Kiss appears on Low-life. The track is said to be about the death of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, and the words seem to bear this out (‘pretending not to see his gun / I said let’s go out and have some fun’). Yet instead of a funeral dirge, The Perfect Kiss is a full-on, hands-in-the-air dance track, complete with burping frog sound effects, cowbells and handclaps. This meshing of disparate emotions, which was once described as ‘tears on the dancefloor’, is one of the factors that makes Low-life such a compelling record.
