Between March 18th and March 30th 1980, Manchester post-punk legends Joy Division were in London with Producer Martin Hannett recording their second and final studio album Closer.
The session began following the previous two that involved the recording of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” at Pennine Studios on January 8th, and Strawberry Studios two months later in March.
Martin Hannett while working on the Closer sessions would continue his work mixing singer Ian Curtis’s vocals for Love Will Tear Us Apart, which had matured Curtis’ singing style which had taken to heart Factory Record’s owner Tony Wilson’s gift of Frank Sinatra records prior to these sessions.
During the Closer sessions, Hannett would go even further with his work refining Curtis’ vocals, working separately with in-studio with Ian. This took the music stylistically into something more somber, subtle, whose lyrical content was in hindsight indicative of what was to come to pass two months later.
Even the production’s only glaring mistake—the mishap with a razor in editing the end of “Isolation”, adds to the beauty of this flawless album.
Closer would later be released on July 18th, 1980, posthumously through Factory Records, following the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis two months earlier on May 18th, 1980.
The cover artwork was designed by both Martyn Atkins and Peter Saville. The photograph on the cover was taken by Bernard Pierre Wolff, and is an image of Jesus and Mary from Appiani family tomb in the Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno in Genoa, Italy.
The tomb is from the same cemetery that was also chosen for the sleeve for “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. Bassist Peter Hook would later personally visit these tombs for the first time in 2015, thirty-five years after the release of both the album and single.
Be a starlight once more that guides me in the dead of night and when your fire weakens I shall…
Sarcophagus golden carcass Sarcophagus rigor mortis Drenched in cataclysm and curled in dystopian dread, Qual—William Maybelline’s fierce alter ego—seizes the…
Skin sloughed off Exposed rot Sickness spied Wet, weak eyes Lacerated soul Psychodermatology is a medical field that studies the…
Loving something you shouldn’t is like clutching a live wire—painful, charged, and impossible to release. You know it’s wrong, yet…
In tracing the roots of German-Swiss trio Emily Kinski’s Dead (Oliver Spring, Thomas Kowa, René Ebner), one senses their fierce…
Fighting for my life alone, Begging for a place to call my home I’m standing in my way, Don’t want…