JD Recycle 6: Komakino

[Link removed 20 November 2012] (24 MB)

Joy Division
Komakino
Factory Records Fac 28
Produced by Martin Hannett
April 1980

Tracklisting:

01 Komakino
02 Incubation
03 As You Said

1, 2 sourced from Nippon Columbia Japan CD Substance COCY-9332
3 sourced from London Records CD box set Heart And Soul 828 968-2

Thanks again to Craigie for scanning assistance.

Here are the notes from Mr. A.L., who is doing the mastering:

A record you could simply get free by walking into a record shop and asking for it. Granted it was a shoddy flexidisc, but free? In those pre-filesharing days, legally this was something.

And the first track is among the band's best ever. A very oppressive, dense, kinetic track that by all rights should have been on Closer. Bernard lets it rip a bit towards the end (feedback rather prominent in the mix), and Ian's lyric is amongst his most emotive and prophetic. "As the questions arise and the answers don't fit into my way of things", indeed. The next obvious step would be to say, well, what next? And we all know what came next.

Incubation comes off as more of a disposable guitar workout, with Ian's hyper strumming throughout - I wonder why Ian never saw fit to match a lyric to the tune, as the tune itself is kind of unique.

As You Said, a track that could be as much a Hannett composition as a Curtis/Hook/Morris/Sumner one for all the crazy effects on the track, was taken from the box set because that's the only digital version not sourced from scratchy flexi plastic. The box set compilers actually were able to source the 1/4" master tape and use it for the box, so it made sense to grab the track from there.

Minor EQ and volume adjustments only.

To me, As You Said is a clear "eff off" to the deniers who say Joy Division would never have gotten into all that synthy disco bullshit. The signs were there. I'd never heard the track until sometime in the early 90's when I managed to acquire a copy of the flexidisc, but I recognized it right away because it was beautifully sampled by Meat Beat Manifesto and used as the rhythm bed to Hello Teenage America on their 1990 album 99%. MBM is another of the bands I've followed obsessively (see also: Nitzer Ebb, The Cure, Depeche Mode).