Electronic 2013

Electronic were the approaching together of Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr in 1987. This used to be the year of the sudden and wholly unexpected demise of The Smiths, who imploded in July after Marr left the gang. Two months later, midway through a North American tour, Bernard Sumner shocked his bandmates by announcing that he planned to take time out from New Order. -Marr and Sumner had met in 1984 when Marr added guitar to Atom Rock by Quando Quango, an electro-dance track co-produced by Sumner. Marr sums up their coming together for Electronic; ‘We were two musicians who sought after to get away from the suffocating politics of the band. On the same time, it used to be OK for duos and DJs and non-groups to make records, and that actually appealed to Bernard and me.” -The project used to be a joyous Venn Diagram of Sumner and Marr’s influences. Even though ostensibly coming from different disciplines, the experimental dance-pop of New Order and the fullbodied jangle of The Smiths, their common interests were many: dance music, a good tune and pushing musical boundaries. On the time of release (Would possibly 1991), ‘Electronic’ used to be met with huge acclaim and stands up as one of the crucial essential electronica albums of all time…