2013 will see lost tracks from New Order’s 2005 album Waiting for the Sirens’ Call complied into a mini-album Lost Sirens. Hook reminisces fondly of the quality of the recordings: “The idea was that we were going to do another album really quickly and one of my dissatisfactions with the rest of the band when we were working together was the fact that it didn’t happen.
“The tracks were ignored for six years. I kept asking the question ‘why isn’t lost sirens out?’ It’s just a ridiculous thing that it hasn’t come out.
“I mean Lost Sirens does mark the end to my song writing with them, and that is a weird thing. I had gone to rehab just as the tracks were finished off. I was recovering from alcoholism and I wasn’t able to put in as much input as I wanted to.
“So I was in rehab and they didn’t wait. The whole thing was tinged and had a weird feel to it. I felt Ok about the song choices at the time and thought; yeah those tracks should have been left off.
“I only listened to it properly a few months ago when I had the time and I though fucking hell! These tracks are really good.
“It’s really interesting from a recording point of view because these tracks had a lot of money spent on them and were treated in exactly the same way as the other album tracks. A lot of bands can’t afford to put the same production values on tracks and a lot of music nowadays sounds under-produced because of this. I think you can tell that a lot of tracks are done on a computer and lack clarity.
“I suppose it’s all thanks to everyone that illegally downloads music. They have fucked the sound. It all sounds shit, and it’s their entire fault! So thanks for that.”
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