Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Recycle

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Welcome!


The purpose of this blog is to archive the work of Joy Division and New Order during their tenure on the legendary Factory Records from Manchester, England. While the stories of both bands have been documented thoroughly in book, film, and CD/box set formats, many of their recordings from 1978-1990 remain unreleased on any other format than the original (now out-of-print) vinyl singles.

The concept for Recycle was proposed by the late Rob Gretton, who was the manager of both bands until his death from a heart attack in 1999. He wanted to release a comprehensive singles box similar to what The Clash, Blondie, and Depeche Mode have done, with each disc collecting all the A-sides, B-sides, and remixes of each single, and house them in miniature sleeves with faithfully restored/reproduced artwork. When Gretton died, the project died with him.

Although London Records/Rhino is about to roll out 2-disc deluxe editions of the five studio albums New Order recorded for Factory, there's not enough room on the bonus discs to collect everything together, and as many of you may know, the first rollout of these discs was a huge disaster, plagued with horrible mastering and culling many tracks from vinyl, despite being promoted as remastered. Most of the master tapes are missing, and it's taken the label almost a year to fix the problems and get remanufactured discs into the stores.

New Order was such a singles band that it seems criminal not to give them the singles box treatment. Substance isn't even in print anymore, so it's back to the basics. Sourcing from my personal collection and working closely with a friend who is an audio restoration expert (along with input from a small circle of other superfans), I'll be posting Recycle as a virtual box set of 20 singles, from 1981's Ceremony to 1990's World In Motion, providing detailed notes and anecdotes along the way.

A few things you should know:

- The files are in AAC/iTunes format at 256kbps. They are already fully tagged and ready for your iPod. They will not be made available in any other format.

- Each folder also contains jpegs of the sleeves (7", 12" and CD formats).

- Documentation of the artwork restoration process can be found here.

- Using files found in the above link, creative types can assemble their own minature sleeves following these instructions.

I hope you enjoy this project as much as I do. It's something I've wanted to do for a very long time and has reaffirmed just how important this music has been in my life. Whether you've been a fan since the early days or have just discovered Joy Division and New Order, if you like what you hear, please support the band by purchasing their catalog.

Cheers, and thanks for listening.

DJ £50 Note

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