The Beat Surrender

Very few bands and artists in the history of recorded music have received such long lasting loyalty and outright devotion as Joy Division and their singer who committed suicide two days before the bands first tour of the United States.

That said very few bands have ever had that magical intensity about them that Joy Division had, very few if any have ever been able to encapsulate raw emotion and a spiralling troubled mind into such beautiful and inordinately powerful music as Ian Curtis did when he performed.

The fact that he died so young and in such terrible circumstances at a time when they were poised for major success is one of the reasons why his story has made it to film 25 years after his death, courtesy of Control, a film which has already wowed audiences at the Cannes Festival this year.

To mark the 25th anniversary and to celebrate the films release, the entire Joy Division back catalogue has been repackaged and re-released with live tracks attached to each album. The bands brilliant debut album Unknown Pleasures is released with live shows from Manchester Factory and West Hampstead, the follow up Closer (release a few months after Curtis’s death) comes with a gig from London ULU and Still (an album of unreleased and rare material) is backed up with the band Live At High Wycombe.

The albums are released on double CDs and 180gm vinyl that can also be purchased in a three vinyl box-set. Hopefully the film and the re-release of the albums will see the band come to an even wider audience and help people understand the influence they’ve had on people like The Smiths, Interpol, The Editors and many others over the years.

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