Description
The recording of Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ in April 1979, heralded a new chapter for Strawberry Studios and the development of a symbiotic relationship between the studio and Factory Records, whereby free overnight sessions were made available in return for a share of any profits. Factory’s charismatic boss Tony Wilson recognised how 10cc investing in this state-of-the-art facility had benefited their ambitious in-house producer Martin Hannett (also known as Martin Zero) and the Factory rosta of artists to make groundbreaking music.
Martin Hannett told the band – Ian Curtis (vocals), Peter Hook (bass), Bernard (Barney) Sumner (guitar), Stephen Morris (drums) – that he needed forty minutes of music for the album. Sixteen tracks were recorded but only ten ended up on the album. The band arrived at the studio straight after work on a Friday and would record until seven in the morning, repeating the same process on the Saturday and Sunday nights. Recording took place the first two weekends and Martin mixed the album on the third weekend.
Peter Hook explains that Martin Hannett, assisted by young engineer Chris Nagle, wanted to capture the live feel of the band without sacrificing the clarity of the instruments, so he set them all up to record separately so he could isolate the sounds. On ‘She’s Lost Control’ Martin got Stephen Morris to take his drum kit apart to record each drum separately which was a very laborious process. “He was allowed to play only one drum at time,” says Peter. “Steve had to learn to play the kit like a drum machine. It even got to the point where Martin was taking the drums themselves apart, taking the tightening springs out because he said they squeaked. Only he could hear it.”
The band would play through songs as live and ask Martin for his feedback to which they would receive some very obtuse comments; “Try it slower but faster. Meaner but kinder” and “A bit on the buttery side!” For the track ‘Insight’ Martin’s experimental approach came into play as he recorded the sound of the Strawberry Studios’ freight lift and Ian Curtis inside it!
Martin also hated the band hanging around in the studio when they weren’t recording. Peter Hook remembers that he used to turn up the air conditioning to try and freeze them out. Barney would come with a sleeping bag to combat this.
On first hearing of ‘Unknown Pleasures’ Ian Curtis and Stephen Morris loved it but Hooky and Barney absolutely hated it because it didn’t reflect their raw, live sound. “We thought it was too weak,” remembers Peter. “We wanted it to be miles heavier. It made us sound so….weedy. He’d taken all the guts out of it. How could he do that?
“All the things I now love about the album – the spacey, echoey ambient sound of it – were all the things I hated about it when I first heard it. I can see what Martin gave us was the greatest gift any producer can give a band – timelessness. ‘Unknown Pleasures’ is a truly ageless album. We gave him the brilliant songs and he put them in little capsules so they’d stay brilliant forever.”
Peter Hook credits Bernard Sumner with finding the perfect image for the record cover – a diagram of a pulsar in ‘The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy’ that he showed to designer Peter Saville who worked his magic. “Bernard doesn’t get nearly enough credit for that because he couldn’t have made a better choice: that image is now forever associated with Joy Division and ‘Unknown Pleasures’ the record.”
‘Unknown Pleasures’ was released in June 1979 to critical acclaim, but while it took some time for the album to gain wider recognition, it is now lauded as one of the greatest albums of all time. Paul Hanley of The Fall observes, “Hannett took the material that the band had hammered out in the North-West’s gob-filled shitholes and, without touching the arrangements, created an icy soundscape that will forever be intrinsically linked to Manchester.”
A large-scale mural by Otto Schade (Osch) celebrating ‘Unknown Pleasures’ with the front cover artwork and Ian Curtis’ Phantom Vox guitar features on the upper wall of The Underbank on Great Underbank in Stockport, along with a Stockport Music Story commemorative plaque to ‘Unknown Pleasures’.
