joy division singles and rarities

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As mentioned yesterday, the Recycle: Joy Division & New Order blog has taken on the task of remastering and making available every single in the catalog of those transcendent bands.

To recreate these singles in a digital format, they've painstakingly sourced the earliest available recordings — some vinyl, some CD and some from low-generation cassette. The New Order singles were pretty faithful to the originals with a few extra remixes thrown in for good measure.

The Joy Division singles are less essential considering the recent release of the +- Singles Box and the 2001 box set Heart & Soul. However, the addition of some rare demos and live versions definitely make things interesting.

First up is "Warsaw" from the 1978 EP An Ideal For Living. This recording comes from the Japanese version of Substance:

Next is a 1979 demo of "Digital" that they've kindly added to the retooling of A Factory Sample EP:

Another rare addition is this early version of "Transmission" uncovered on cassette by someone close to the band:

And last, but not least, the gents at Recycle: Joy Division & New Order have reimagined the 1988 "Atmosphere" single as a live EP featuring performances from a January 1980 Paradiso, Amsterdam gig "directly from Dutch radio". Here's a lovely version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" - as long as you can forgive Hooky's sloppiness:



Thank you, good sirs, thank you.

every new order single ever

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In the course of the recent trip down Smiths memory lane, I stumbled across a networked blog devoted to the digital remastering of vinyl New Order singles.

This is the real deal. These are club DJs, engineers and audiophiles who have lovingly restored these rare and out-of-print singles for eternal posterity.

From the Recycle: Joy Division & New Order blog: "All tracks were taken from the best/earliest possible sources to avoid modern mastering techniques which crush the dynamics. Tracks sourced from vinyl have been carefully cleaned and EQ levels have been tweaked for consistency. The artwork was scanned at the highest possible resolution and the type was reset when possible using the original fonts."

Damn.

Now some of this has shown up on various singles collections or album remasters, but no complete box set of New Order singles exists. So let's take a look at some of the gold you can find.

From the "Everything's Gone Green" single, here's rarity "Mesh":

And here's the 12" version of "Temptation" from the band's first self-produced single:

 
Finally, here's the superior 12" version of "Round & Round":



Do yourself a favor, scour Recycle: Joy Division & New Order. Not just for the impeccably remastered singles you can download, but also for the historical and production context that the contributors add to each selection.

Check back tomorrow and we'll peruse their back catalog of Joy Division singles.