Factory could have made a fortune if these singles were repressed, back in '87. Faithful to his own commitments, the whole thing was left to London Records. New Order lose themselves in remixes and, in these last two decades, only occasionally achieved the once beloved path.
Living in the past... Probably - but I'd rather listen to these songs all night long than waiting for the sirens's call.
Long songs to dance, in a long dance. Songs that lead no one indifferent, even the most purist Joy Division's fan wouldn't dare to tag them as "Euro-Disco".
There are synth lines that go straight to our hearts, like an arrow, making a wound that could hardly heal, refuses to heal and wouldn't heal itself. It remain in our minds, like a whispering voice, until all is over but the shouting.
If we listen carefully to New Order's lyrics we can find out a kind of cruelty, a sad reality, a kind of awful sin, like those that made us cry out in our childhood.
We were a small group of friends, driving at night, on a weekend, back in '87. The entire group remained quiet. Suddenly, without warning, I took a tape from my pocket, put it on the car's stereo system and raised up the volume. The substance began to play without complaints, the shadows ran faster in the night and nobody said a word. When Barney started to sing "Thieves Like Us" the whole group joined together in a choir. Well, in fact I remember that a german friend of mine wasn't singing... He reached out to me with his strange foreign accent and fearlessly, asked me if I could lent him the album again. In a few words the whole mistery was solved - When he recorded his own tape for the first time, he thought that it was the instrumental version that features on B-side of Shellshock. New Order's songs have that power, and I brought back the album from my hometown, at 150 Kms, for the second time, so my friend could hear that song on tape.
"Yes, it's called love and it cuts your life like a broken knife"
God, how I miss those Factory records...

There is a limited release (1,000 copies) of this double LP. Same tracks but different cover. The front has the Peony Blue Rose and the back Conch Red Shell. Each employee of Factory Records received a copy of Substance 1987 for their birthday during the fiscal year of its release. Finally, on the back there's a caption that states, "Not for resale unless desperate."