RECYCLE: Joy Division 01 An Ideal For Living

The Power of Independent Trucking is proud to link up with the folks at the Recycle blog (well, £50 Note at least) to present the Joy Division chapter of RECYCLE - £50 Note's yeoman effort at doing the box set that should have happened all along.

The mind behind the PoIT curtain - your own Analog Loyalist - is overseeing and handling the mastering work of the raw audio tracks. £50 Note is managing the general presentation and the artwork. Occasionally I will host over here differences, or oddities, I've come across while restoring the audio.



Today we feature the premier release of the nascent Joy Division, the EP recorded in December 1977 that became the highly-sought-after An Ideal For Living 7"/12". While the tracks themselves ultimately saw wide release on 1988's Substance, and then 1997's box set Heart and Soul, the quality of both issues was just so-so. Furthermore, the box set versions sounded *worse* than the 1988 release! Why, I have no idea. It's almost as if the box set used a cassette dub of the tracks as its source, while 1988's Substance went back to the masters.

Anyhow, oddly enough, the original vinyl pressings themselves, and all subsequent digital reissues (which I have confirmed by comparing to raw transfers from the actual original 7" and 12" releases) were mastered a bit fast, perhaps to be more punk? I don't know, and all I do know is that the recordings were not in concert pitch. It could simply have been a mastering error, or perhaps the band themselves didn't own any tuning equipment.

So of course I corrected it, for this post at least. £50 Note is posting the pitch-accurate-to-original-release version, as he should. If you want the pitch-accurate-to-a-tuning-fork, however, you're at the right place.

Lossless FLAC, remastered from the original Japanese CD pressing of Substance - the best digital source I've been able to locate. Grab them here!

JOY DIVISION
RECYCLE 01: An Ideal For Living
7" debut release, Enigma PSS139 (June 1978)
12" reissue, Anonymous ANON1 (October 1978)

01 Warsaw
02 No Love Lost
03 Leaders Of Men
04 Failures
05 At A Later Date (bonus, from the Virgin CD issue of Short Circuit)

See the post over at the Recycle blog for more details, and my original mastering notes.

Enjoy!