Into the Unknown

For Christmas lovely bestie gave me this early example of post-punk music hailing from her very own Mancunia.  Possibly almost as distinctive and recognisable an album cover as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album, this is Joy Division's first album, Unknown Pleasures.  It's also – on a first listen – a very distinctive sound!  It's like nothing I was expecting: it's brooding and tense, hollow sounding yet massive, the lyrics are poetic and observational, sometimes mumbled and sometimes upfront and clear, and it's musically proficient yet sometimes bordering on the primitive.  I know very little about the band in fact, other than what BB explained during our early video natter this morning, plus what I have speed read on Wikipedia just now.  I certainly didn't know that the band existed for only about four years, and I also didn't know it was the nucleus of New Order.

This is actually a remastered version and has a live show on the second CD that I will be listening to soon.  The commentary in the liner notes says that the album's sound was untypical of their more energetic live performances, but has its own unique identity.

The rest of today was a brief trip to IKEA in which I battled the high winds that all day have been blowing with fearsome force, some podcast listening, and a catch up this evening with friend-in-need who I think just needed someone to vent to for an hour.