Crank it Out

As part of the 2017 Manchester International Festival, New Order played a five-night residency at a special place, Old Granada Studios, where Joy Division made their television debut in 1978. To make the event even more special, the band added a 12-member synthesizer orchestra to their regular lineup and utilized the striking stage design of visual artist Liam Gillick. They were inspired by the setting to play a set that spanned their entire career from their early days as Joy Division to 2015's Music Complete. Most albums rated a song apiece and the selections weren't obvious ones for the most part. For example, they don't play late-period highlight "Crystal"; they instead play "Behind Closed Doors," which was the B-side. The choices are striking, and it makes it clear that the band's catalog is extremely deep…

The idea for The Runk went beyond just the collection of songs that Otis Grove had for the album. The band's sound had started taking on harder edge characteristics that can be heard on some of the earlier cuts off of their first album for Ropeadope, Crank it UP. The Runk took those ideas and expanded them further, fully embracing heavy rock grooves and sounds that can be heard prominently in songs "Monark", "Rock City" and "Plywood Snowshoe". The Runk (which is a mixture of Rock-Funk) was what they started calling this new sound that they were developing.