Joy Division – Still (1981)

I was given this as a Christmas present soon after release, and remember being taken by surprise, as I'd had no idea of its release until it emerged from Santa's sack in 1981.

It's always hard to know how to view compilations/previously unreleased demos which follow an artist's untimely death.

Were Factory cashing in on their lost asset, or were they meeting the demand for more, which would otherwise have been exploited by lower quality bootlegs from dubious sources?

This was originally a 2 LP set, broadly one LP of demos from late 1978 - early 1980 which didn't make it on to either studio album, and one of their final gig at Birmingham University, just two weeks before Ian Curtis took his life.

Understandably, the unreleased material, hasn't had the full Martin Hannett treatment, but it's still unmistakably that Joy Division sound, and there are a few gems which wouldn't have been out of place on their studio albums, although possibly Unknown Pleasures more than Closer.

Possibly the weaker ones of the 'new' material come from their April 1979 Unknown Pleasures sessions, Walked In Line, The Kill, Exercise One although The Only Mistake is strongest from this session. Something Must Break was also recorded at this time, during sessions for Transmission, and it's fantastic.

Of the discarded stuff post-Unknown Pleasures stuff, Ice Age is probably the most appealing, and the earlier (1978) Glass, released on a Factory sampler is great. But there's a special place for the utterly superb Dead Souls, which I would have sworn was on Closer, but I find isn't, but was B side to Atmosphere.

The first section ends with a live (April 1980) cover of Velvet Underground's Sister Ray, a fine small piece of history, if an overlong and flawed performance.

The live second half displays how much impact Martin Hannett had on the recorded sound which came out on the albums, yet how well the band, only two years on from their first gig, captured that sound live.

There's the first (only?) JD appearance of Ceremony (later to become New Order's debut single), a fantastic version of Shadowplay, and a slightly different version of New Dawn Fades. My CD version leaves off Twenty Four Hours to fit onto one disc (a pity, it's probably my favourite JD song), but the final quarter runs through Transmission, Curtis's voice becoming fragile, Disorder, Isolation making extensive live use of synths, a hopelessly out of tune synth on Decades, which seems to throw Curtis' vocals, and finishing with a spirited rendition of early sampler release Digital.

In all, it's a fitting legacy of the band's live output, as well as an interesting tidy up of previously unreleased material. Well worth buying. Let's hope the record companies don't over-monetise that legacy by endless compilations

Link to album tracks

4* - an appropriate attempt to draw a line under Joy Division and let the new chapter begin.