Joy Division – IN COMPLETION CD

Joy Division formed in June 1976 following childhood friends Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook attending a now-legendary Sex Pistols gig in Manchester. Inspired by the raw energy of the performance, the pair decided to form a band, soon joined by vocalist Ian Curtis and drummer Stephen Morris. Initially performing under the name Warsaw, the group fused punk aggression with a darker, more introspective edge, led by Curtis’s hypnotic presence as frontman. In January 1978, they renamed themselves Joy Division, borrowing the name from the sexual slavery wing of a Nazi concentration camp mentioned in the 1955 novel House of Dolls. Joy Division disbanded in 1980 following Ian Curtis’s tragic suicide.Throughout their all-too-brief existence, both Stephen Morris and manager Rob Gretton recorded the band’s rehearsals, intended as a means of promotion and preservation. Captured between 1977 and 1980, these recordings offer an unfiltered glimpse into the band’s formative stages. The tapes are intimate portraits of a group honing their craft. They demonstrate the band working through both new ideas and now-familiar material characterised by Curtis’s commanding vocals, Sumner’s jagged guitar work, Hook’s melodic basslines, and Morris’s crisp, driving rhythms.