Photo by Philip Cosores
Last July, Cold Cave covered The Cure’s “Plainsong” (at Tony Hawk’s wedding), Wesley Eisold’s love of moody synthpop guiding the way. In similar fashion, this week he’s tackled New Order’s “Your Silent Face”, taken from their sophomore album, 1983’s Power, Corruption & Lies.
Eisold has long considered the New Wave legends one of his biggest musical inspirations. As Stereogum points out, on a new website that pays tribute to New Order, he called them “a gift that somehow makes you feel alone and not alone at the same time,” adding, “I’ve never known of another group that I’ve connected with so explicitly through the severe facets of life’s ups and downs. Sincerity is a trait you can’t fake.”
Listen to his cover of “Your Silent Face” below.
Read Eisold’s full note on New Order’s influence:
“New Order is a gift that somehow makes you feel alone and not alone at the same time. That’s how I’ve carried them with me through my teens, twenties, thirties and however long I may grow. I’ve never known of another group that I’ve connected with so explicitly through the severe facets of life’s ups and downs. Sincerity is a trait you can’t fake.
“From daydreams in a boyish bedroom to nights never slept, I loved New Order because I felt these songs understood me and articulated in sound what I never could with words. Beautiful and brutish. That’s why at 22 I tattooed True Faith on my wrist. I wanted music to walk home alone at night with and I wanted music to feel alive around other people with. A band whose sentiments made me feel justified in my naive dreams, that anything was possible, and because of so I chose to follow them. And unlike other records for me, I relate to the feeling in the music itself of New Order rather than just identifying solely with the singer or lyrics. They’re the most fulfilling sparsity. You have to have lived through so much to have the music do the speaking for you, to create poetry and anthems from the simplicity of the day to day. That’s why they changed music and why Pop came to them.
“For me personally, New Order gave me the courage to dive in to creating music electronically and to sing as a punk who knew very little about electronics or singing, just as they did 30 some years ago. Heavy hearted and carefree at the same time.”
