It was only when Peter Hook was moving house a few months ago and came across some old, never released, Joy Division tapes, that the idea of a complete and definitive Joy Division box set took shape. A rumble around record company vaults, various television and radio studios and other band members' personal belongings has resulted in Heart And Soul, a very impressive four-CD set which features everything Joy Division ever recorded, alongside material from when they used to be known as Warsaw.
If you're wondering how a band who only ever released two albums are able to put out a four-CD set, there are also all the John Peel sessions included here, as well as a recording of their last ever concert in Birmingham. There's also a pretty nifty 72-page booklet about the band, as well as a new "essay" by Paul Morley and a very good article that Jon Savage (author of England's Dreaming) wrote about them for Melody Maker.
The Manchester of the late 1970s ("the rain falls down on a humdrum town" as Morrissey once wrote of it) which shaped and styled the Joy Division sound was a far different place from the city which went on to produce The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Oasis, among others. Invariably described as overly funereal and chronically melancholic, the Joy Division sound was like nothing heard before or since, and its hypnotic quality (mainly due to all the circular rhythms they employed) resonates to this day. Bizarrely enough, both Bono and George Michael cite Joy Division as a massive influence on their work (are you sure about this, Mr. Michael?) - but it's best to quickly gloss over Paul Young's obsession with the band, particularly his incredibly bad cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart.
The band (Ian Curtis, Bernard Albrecht, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris), were one of the first signings to Tony Wilson's Factory label (Wilson still claims that he sunk his £8,000 life savings into funding the band's first album) - and what a debut it was. Unknown Pleasures (1979), with its stark black cover and mostly single word song-titles, introduced us to the trademark sound of Morris's drums employed as a lead instrument and Hook's subsonic bass lines. The sound was further formulated and later refined in the two follow-up singles: Transmission and the ever brilliant Love Will Tear Us Apart.
When the band played live, singer Ian Curtis's neurotic choreography was always a focal point but when the critics described his movements as "epileptic" little did they know at the time that Curtis was suffering from increasingly debilitating bouts of epilepsy and on more than one occasion had a severe seizure on stage. But there was worse to come.
With the band's second album ready to be pressed up, and a major tour of the US only a few days away, Curtis committed suicide and Joy Division immediately dissolved, but not before releasing the Closer album. Songs like Heart And Soul and Isolation have since passed into rock mythology, with the band making the most of their curiously angular sound and enigmatic lyrics - sample: "this is the hour when the mysteries emerge. A strangeness so hard to reflect" - and plenty more in that vein.
A big fan of Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and Berlin-era Bowie, Curtis was one of the unlikeliest rock frontmen, and one of the best. Wisely the band didn't try to replace him; instead they recruited a new keyboard player, Gillian Gilbert, put Bernard Sumner on lead vocals and renamed themselves New Order - the new name continuing their controversial use of Nazi-related imagery. The Joy Division vs. New Order debate has always been a bit meaningless but if you want it settled once and for all, just take a quick listen to what's on offer here. It's very beautiful, in its own strange way.
Heart And Soul is released this week on the London label.
The Velure/Mambo people have just opened a new club, called Roots (Further Adventures In Dancefloor Jazz) at the Chocolate Bar/POD each and every Thursday night, while their highly popular Lost In Music has returned to Lillie's on Sunday night . . . Metallica it ain't: The Great Western Squares and Jubilee Allstars share the stage of The Mean Fiddler next Thursday night in a Popscene special . . . The man who Malcolm McLaren (and many others) says invented hip-hop, Afrika Bambaataa, makes a rare live appearance at the Red Box tonight, support from Peshay and Glen Brady . . . While down at the marvellous Fusion Bar (Townsend Street) tonight, the Hope Collective are putting on a hardcore night (plus a game of bingo) in aid of a local women's refuge. It's free but it would be a good idea if you brought along toys to the value of £3 (or more). Bands on the night include such household names as Stomach, The Waltons, Cheapskate and Null Set. Punk rock and bingo - what more would you want?
Manchester in the late-1970s shaped the unmistakable Joy Division sound.
