Alt.Eighties: Closer to Movement – The beginning and the end.

It was both the end and the beginning.

Joy Division’s 2nd album Closer, released in 1980 just months after the suicide of the band’s lead singer and lyricist Ian Curtis, was a record burdened by the tragic circumstances that preceded its coming.

Closer was destined to sit in the shadows of its influential precursor Unknow Pleasures, but in retrospect Closer became more widely recognised as a seminal release of the post-punk era.

The album lead to a new incarnation, that was New Order, and the first album they gave us under that banner was the 1981 release Movement. The album is the sound of a band in transition from the post-punk sound of Joy Division to the synth band New Order would become several years later.

This week on Alt.Eighties we take a listen to this ‘bridging’ moment in the career of this highly influential band. We will take tracks from Joy Division’s finale album Closer and New Order’s debut Movement.