Peter Hook & The Light - New Order's Technique & Republic - Double LP

You know a Peter Hook bassline as soon as you hear it.

There is something ominous and evocative within those low, brooding notes. Hooky’s riffs can get you to dance like you’re in a club in Ibiza, or they can make you to miss someone special whom you haven’t thought about in ages. But no matter if his sound made you move or got you thinking, Peter Hook’s music - in Joy Division, New Order, and his solo career - makes you feel something pure and real.

Hook continues to breathe new life into those classic sounds by reimagining old favorites in his current live shows with his band Peter Hook & The Light, featuring his son Jack Bates on bass and Hook’s bandmates from his former band, Monaco. New generations of fans who weren’t alive during the influential Factory Records era can now finally hear songs from Unknown Pleasures, Movement, Technique and Republic performed live, as The Light transform these illustrious albums for modern audiences and bring the legendary catalogs of Joy Division and New Order to vibrant life.

Throughout Hook’s celebrated career, his fluid basslines have provided a dynamic, propulsive anchor that his songs have been built upon. His low end gives those tracks a visceral sonic heartbeat that his bandmates as well as his fans can lock into, while also providing expansive space for the songs to breathe and grow. One of the many reasons why New Order’s songs have worked especially well as 12-inch remixes is because Hooky’s bass sound has a liquid, buoyant edge to it that can easily be manipulated by DJs to transform the songs into dancefloor fillers and nightclub anthems.

On Technique and Republic, Hook and his New Order bandmates took their English electronic dance sound to the beaches of Ibiza, a move which injected their music with a Balearic effervescence. That slight shift in style clearly resonated with their fans, as both LPs topped the British music charts. The Light drew on those blissful island vibes for a lengthy 2019 UK and North American tour that celebrated those two landmark New Order records. These full-album shows were joyous performances, in large part because the music was decidedly lighter in tone and texture and more uplifting than the material from the angsty early days of Hook’s career.

In a world filled with so much darkness and division at the moment, it is reassuring to know that Peter Hook is still out there playing music and bringing so much joy to his legion of fans. While the celebrated albums Hook has recorded will eternally live on in our hearts and on our stereos, seeing him triumphantly perform the famous songs that made him a legend reminds us that our shared love of music will always bring us closer together rather than tear us apart.