Kirill Galetski

I was born in Russia, but I grew up in the United States from the age of five.

I graduated from B.A. in Psychology from Portland State University in Portland, Oregon and I studied acting briefly at the St. Petersburg Theater Arts Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia.

I moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow in October 2002, and I currently work as a freelance translator and arts journalist. My life goal is to become a filmmaker, but I’m not in any hurry – I’ll do so when I have something substantial to say and the resources to say it with.

I have always striven to be different from those around me, and this is certainly part of what led me to like New Order.

I first heard about New Order when I heard the girl that I was unrequitedly in love with in high school telling a friend about her liking for New Order. It was the late Eighties at the time, but it would be a while before I got my hands on my first New Order record. That record was Power, Corruption and Lies, and the album caused a turning in my consciousness, and then from that time on, I started listening to more and more progressive music. Before Power, Corruption and Lies, I liked pretty much classic rock and my favorite band was Queen, believe it or not! Now, it’s New Order. I bought Power, Corruption and Lies in Fayetteville, North Carolina, of all places! I was in the U.S. Army at the time, stationed at Fort Bragg, and on weekends I would go into town. They had this “alternative” record store, and that’s where I bought the disc, and subsequently Low-life and Brotherhood soon afterward. While living in Oregon, I filled out my New Order and Joy Division collections with everything that was in my power to find and buy.

My most recent New Order record-buying experience was getting a hold of an MP3 version of the live bootleg Electronic Ecstasy. This record really lives up to its title! It’s an excellent live record, the renditions of which surpass the BBC Radio 1 Live in Glastonbury record. If you can find it, it’s really worth having. I really wish I could see New Order live – I’ve not had any real chances, and I hope that they’ll come to Russia one day.

Because more than any other band, I've connected with the music on a psychological, mental, emotional, even spiritual level. It really speaks to me and I can really relate to it, both the notes/sounds and the lyrics. I empathize when I listen to it.

To me, New Order are the harmonious bonding of many things: the acoustic and electronic, the romantic and the realistic, with both lower-case and capital R-s. The Romanticism in the music is both transcendent and sublime. The music as a whole is great art. The Realism of the lyrics is consistently refreshing. I like the lyrics a lot, because to me they're a thousand times better than most pop lyrics in that when Bernard is signing about love, it's not some tawdry sentimental pap, but real emotion, real-life experience with a strong outlook devoid of self-pity, and for the most part, a mature attitude toward relationships. The lyrics have truly reflected ways I've felt, and certain songs have come to have strong emotional-mnemonic associations within me to episodes in my personal life. For instance, once when I called an old flame of mine at her work during a particularly difficult period in our relationship, I heard “Regret” playing over her radio, and the passionate, conflicting emotions I experienced at that time are forever etched on my memory and partially associated with that particular playing of the song.

I agree with Peter Hook when he says he doesn't really like the word "fan," but prefers a term more along the lines of "like-minded individual," which is what I am - if I were a musician of the same era as the members of New Order, I would have created music that would be along similar lines - it's just "my" idea of what good music should be like.

While I'm on the subject of Hook and stylistics, I want to say that another really absorbing- aspect for me is just how truly unique and innovative the band's sound is. It basically turns the traditional 4-person rock combo on its head, or rather the traditional guitar-bass core of it. Hook tunes his bass pretty high, and the bass is used as a melodic instrument quite a bit. Accordingly, Bernard's guitar is used in a rhythm capacity a lot. This interplay is one of the most intriguing aspects of the music, and nobody else has really done the same, to my knowledge. New Order are also a tremendously influential band and this is something for which they are only occasionally acknowledged. When they are given credit for it, it mostly comes from other musicians. They’ve certainly influenced some of the other bands I love, like the Sundays, which I know “for a fact,” since I once interviewed David Gavurin. New Order are also somewhat of an underrated band, although this is part of what makes them special, that of true genius being seldom recognized.