LONDON -- Electro-pop pioneers New Order plan to record their first new material since their 1993 album Republic later this year.

New Order publicist Caroline Poulton said the four members of the British band, who reunited onstage last year after a five-year layoff, thought the gigs had gone well and are "quite happy to carry on working together." They'll begin recording New Order material in late 1999, after all four members have finished various side projects, Poulton said.

During an unusually exuberant performance in the band's hometown of Manchester on Dec. 29 -- one of four shows New Order played in 1998 -- singer-guitarist Bernard Sumner said, "This is the beginning of a new New Order."

Late last year the band recorded a session for Radio 1 DJ John Peel, which was broadcast on Dec. 30. The set, which featured guest vocals by Bobby Gillespie of Scottish dance-rockers Primal Scream, included the New Order songs "Touched by the Hand of God" and "True Faith" as well as new versions of Joy Division's "Isolation" and "Atmosphere." Three members of New Order were in Joy Division, an influential post-punk band whose singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide in 1980.

Some reworked Joy Division songs are expected to show up later this year on a New Order box set, whose working title is Recycle, that's slated to contain all of the band's albums.

In the meantime, all the members of New Order are working on outside projects. Drummer Stephen Morris and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who record as the Other Two, have a new single, "You Can Fly," due Feb. 1 in the U.K., with an album to follow. Electronic, which features Sumner and ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, will release their third album, Twisted Tenderness, in the spring; a single, "Vivid," is due March 8 in the U.K. And bass player Peter Hook is in the studio with his band Monaco, working on an album that Poulton said "won't be ready until at least the summer." New Order will reconvene at some point after that, Poulton said.