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New Music Monday: Joy Division

new music monday joy division
Joy Division - Unknown PleasuresBefore we dig into this week’s column, a point of order: Joy Division is not strictly new music. The band formed in 1976 and dissolved in 1980 in the wake of lead singer Ian Curtis’ suicide. The three remaining members would go on to form New Order, one of the most critically-acclaimed bands of the 80s. Having said that, today we focus on Joy Division because Rhino recently reissued the band’s two albums, Unknown Pleasures and Closer, on 180-gram vinyl.  In the coming weeks Rhino will reissue the compilations Still and Substance, as well.

Unknown Pleasures came out originally came out in June of 1979. Though tracks like “Disorder,” “Insight,” and “She’s Lost Control” are classics today, the album did not sell well initially. It took the release of “Transmission,” a song not on the record, to spark sales. After the single’s release, Unknown Pleasure‘s sales increased, and the first pressing sold out.

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Joy Division - Transmission [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO]

Rhino chose this year to release the records in order to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the release of “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” Joy Division’s biggest hit. It’s an unfortunate twist of fate that the song, whose lyrics appear to document Ian Curtis’ failing marriage, was released a month before his death. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” comes the closest to a pop song that Joy Division ever recorded. Though its context is heartbreaking, the song is one of Joy Division’s best and has been included on a variety of lists of the Greatest Songs of All Time.

Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO]

Like “Transmission,” “Love Will Tear Us Apart” does not actually appear on either Unknown Pleasures or Closer. The track was released as a single separately. Like it’s predecessor, Unknown PleasuresCloser had no singles associated with. The record, however, reached #6 on the UK Albums Chart and held the #1 spot in Australia for four weeks.

Joy Division were among the first bands to take the anger and dissatisfaction of punk music and reforge those emotions into a new sound. The band’s live performances were loud and aggressive, but the sound they became known for is the uncanny echoing that runs through Unknown Pleasures and Closer. Given Ian Curtis’ untimely death it is not possible to know what direction Joy Division would have moved in the 1980s, but luckily the surviving members continued as New Order, and listeners do have their excellent catalogue to listen to.

Joy Division - She's Lost Control (Live At Something Else Show) [Remastered] [HD]

The Rhino reissues of Unknown Pleasures and Closer are available through Amazon.

Editors' Recommendations

New Music Monday: The Wytches
new music monday wytches 940 2

Formed in Brighton in 2011, The Wytches comprises Kristian Bell (vocals, guitar), Dan Rumsey (bass, vocals) and Gianni Honey (drums). Led by Bell’s luminous lyricism, feral delivery and overdriven, surf-like guitar bends, the trio create a sound that is at once raucous and unruly, and yet decorated with semi-automatic poetry and authentic emotional clout.

Having left Peterborough after feeling stifled by their hometown’s inward-looking hardcore scene, Bell and the semi-professional poker playing Honey relocated to Brighton in the autumn of 2011, applying to the city’s university before enlisting Bournemouth-raised, aspiring adventure novelist Rumsey on bass – the sole applicant of an advert placed on campus. From the outset promoting their own shows in the city, The Wytches have never lost the DIY spirit of their hardcore origins: arranging their own tours; printing flyers; pressing their first single, “Digsaw;” inviting friend of the band Samuel Gull to create their artwork; and producing their own videos – all in spite of squeezed funds. It is this relentlessness and resilience that has led to The Wytches headlining countless shows across the UK and Europe to date, acting as chief support to Blood Red Shoes, The Cribs, Drenge, METZ and Japandroids, amongst others. In 2013 the band released a number of singles and EPs on London’s Hate Hate Hate Records (“Beehive Queen,” Thunder Lizard Revisited EP, “Robe for Juda”), before attracting the attention of Heavenly Recordings in the UK and Partisan Records in the USA, who will release their debut album, Annabel Dream Reader, on August 26 2014.

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New Music Monday: Gulp
new music monday gulp

Optimism can be a hard quality to come by, especially in a world that seems to pride itself on cynicism and negativity. But that’s exactly why we need a band like Gulp in our lives. The lush Welsh/Scottish pop group is happy to consider itself an antidote to the creeping pessimism of modern life.
“It’s what comes out of us naturally,” says Gulp’s vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Lindsey Leven. “Everything that you’re writing from the heart is a reflection of what’s going on in your life.” Her husband and bandmate Guto Pryce agrees, “It’s even in times of adversity that we try to remain optimistic.”
In 2014, Gulp has plenty to be enthused about! Pryce has a musical legacy to be proud of, having spent the past 20 years as a founding member of UK pop superstars Super Furry Animals. And Pryce and Leven are both glowing from the joy of writing and recording music together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y22dwqhMXSU
But even amid that, there could have been a turn towards more moody and desperate material. Instead, the pair, with bandmates Gid Goundrey (guitars) and Gwion Llewelyn (drums/vocals), came out with Season Sun, a fuzzy, buzzing upbeat ode to the changing seasons, watching plants grow, dancing, and as they sing on “Vast Space,” being willing to “open up your heart and let the love flood in.”
The “vast space” isn’t just the one within, either. The natural world played a key part in the creation of these songs, some written while Pryce and Leven were vacationing in the California desert, others while road tripping through the Scottish Highlands (you’ll find images of these adventures with the album art) .
There’s some connection to be found between these sounds and what Pryce accomplished as a member of the Furries – the two projects share a love of warm vintage synth sounds and a burnished brand of psychedelia. But Gulp expresses itself with almost throwback sentiments. Apart from a few moments, Season Sun could easily be mistaken this for a lost gem of the late ‘60s unearthed by a studious crate digger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqAxig1WtlI
For as verdant as Gulp’s sound is, the core belongs the musical relationship between Pryce and Leven. When the project began back in 2012, their first efforts centered on just the couple and their trusty drum machine, a Roland 505 donated to them by Leven’s yoga teacher. And even amid the fine contributions of Goundrey and Llewelyn, the heart of each song is the harmonic interplay between Leven’s vocals and the warming synth and bass notes from her musical co-pilot.
Gulp’s humble beam of multicolored musical light has already made its way through the band’s native UK thanks to a well loved lead single “Game Love” and a tour supporting Django Django. The quartet is now looking to taking their message of optimism through the US with their first stop being this year’s SXSW Festival and hopefully some more touring to round out the rest of 2014.
Purchase Season Sun now on Amazon or iTunes!
http://gulpgulp.co.uk/

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F1 Saudi Arabian GP live stream: Watch Formula 1 for free
Formula 1 driver exiting turn.

The F1 Championship continues with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix commencing soon. It's going to be an exciting race with Max Verstappen sure to want to build on his victory in Bahrain earlier this month. If you're keen to see the latest F1 Saudi Arabian live stream, there's a particularly great way to do so and even better -- it won't cost you a cent. Intrigued to know more? Here's all you need to know about how to watch the thrilling race.
Watch the free Saudi Arabian GP live stream
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is being aired for free in Austria and Luxembourg. This is great news for those in the countries, but devastating for residents traveling abroad who want to watch the action unfold live in their local language -- especially when it's free-to-watch at home. It's only fitting that an Austrian currently in the United States would want to watch the race in Austrian and not English, right? This is completely safe and legal to do with a VPN like NordVPN. Just install it, choose to the location you wish to connect to, then fire up broadcast. The free streams are ORF in Austria or RTL Zwee in Luxembourg.

Unfortunately, there isn't a free Saudi Arabian GP live stream for residents of other countries. Elsewhere, folks will need to tune in through a local broadcast partner. The race is available on ESPN in the United States, and the best way to tune in is through fuboTV, which offers a one-week free trial to new customers In the United Kingdom, it's available on Sky Sports F1, and over in Canada it's being broadcast in English through TNS and in French through RDS. There are some other options available as well -- below we'll talk you through the different ways you can tune in locally in the United States in more detail.

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