Closer

Product Information

A2 / B2 Townhouse / GG matrix (MVS or Carlton Productions (some brown translucent) or Linguaphone (with 25mm pressing ring) pressings). The LP features a photograph taken by Bernard Pierre Wolff (1978) which was captured at the Staglieno Cemetery located in Genova, Italy. It is a large emotional work created & sculpted by Demetrio Paernio in 1910 for the Appiani family tomb. From this point onwards, Closer inhabits a world where nothing will be the same again. The second half of the record moves step by painful step as it marches towards its own conclusion and towards a culmination of Joy Division’s career: veering between anger, torment, acceptance and release. The second and final album by Joy Division, released on July 18, 1980 on Factory, two months after the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis.

To say that their music wasn’t happy would be an under statement. Their music was dark, moving, haunting, full of dispair, longing, self reflective and perhaps overindulgent (but that’s not a negative here, we all need to overindulge sometimes). Even their choice of name, Joy Division, comes from a dark period in European history, where women were used as sex slaves for the pleasure of the Nazi’s in concentration camps. Ian was also epileptic, and the strobbing lights during live performances often causing seizers while on stage, adding to the demented spectacle unfolding in theaters. All of this created more sensation then one could hope for, and with their release and charting of "Love Will Tear Us Apart," the band was bound for glory. But glory ment coming to the United States and shaking our shoals, Ian killed himself right before that was to happen. Nevertheless, this band has deeply etched their place on the musical landscape of this planet, and in the lives of so many listeners across the world. Among Tranco / PRT pressings, there is no correlation between vinyl colour and paper part variants.This wasn't late in the night music only, this was solitary morning music, sunny afternoon music, keep you awake during the small hours of the night music. This music was so dark and warm, so perfect all of the time, one could not help but be drawn in. But it wasn’t a place to stay, for if you stayed there too long there would be serious repercussions. Joy Division took you so deeply into regions of yourself, those places you wanted to see, places that you wanted to show to the world, but doubt, fear and the power of these places compels you to keep them hidden, even as Joy Division slides under fingernails and shows you the face in the mirror. Get the new limited edition version of Closer with all three 12” singles in one bundle for a discounted price.

Closer is reissued on 40th Anniversary crystal vinyl from 17th July 2020, along with 12″ reissues of Transmission, Love Will Tear Us Apart and Atmosphere courtesy of Rhino Records.Isolation rages viciously against the scars of loss and alienation. And this song hurts – you truly feel it’s pain. It’s most famous lyric – so frequently quoted – nonetheless remains gut-wrenching: thinking that a human being thought this, wrote these words, and spoke them out loud: Heart and Soul is a netherworld: a haunted, restless dream. Curtis appears to be talking from a distant realm as the swirl of Jaki Liebezeit-esque circular drums and swooning, leering synths circle above your head. It is detached, calm and forensic – almost Faustian in its defence of logic against the looming fires of faith and torment. We as listeners are positioned right in the middle: “H eart and soul / one will burn”. But which will it be? And the testing, chaotic storm of Martin Hannett’s production offers us no definitive answer and no release: Peter Hook’s testing, omnipresent bass eventually meets with the slashes of guitar in a fight that leaves no winner, only a scorched and alien earth. And then there is its earth-tethered sibling Twenty Four Hours. A song that is physically affecting in its intensity and pain. You are hammered by the drums, mortally wounded by the howls emanating from Bernard Sumner’s guitar. Bewitched by the singing, chorded bass lines. And yet there is no escape from what lies below. “ Just for one moment, I heard somebody call / Looked beyond the day in hand, there’s nothing there at all”. You realise, terrifyingly that there is a real sense of emptiness and finality here. And just as you are taking this all in, the music rises and strikes you with another tumult of rhythmical punches and slashes. This is where we are. There is no escape. We must stay and we must witness. Photograph used courtesy of Kevin Cummins Joy Division’s most enduring classic, Love Will Tear Us Apart, was released in June 1980 not long after Ian Curtis’ untimely passing; and become the group’s highest charting single. Named NME Single of the Year 1980, this 40th anniversary 12” has been remastered and pressed on 180g vinyl and features Peter Saville’s iconic original artwork