Novelty

When you’ve waited nearly five years for something this good to pop back up on the interweb, I feel that it is our duty to share. This is the Analog Loyalist 2012 Remaster of Warsaw, in his own words;

I slightly divert from this blog's stated mission and bring to you my remastering attempt of Joy Division's legendary 1978 RCA album sessions bootleg Warsaw, from the original 1989 CD release on RZM.  It's critical to disregard any other known CD release of this bootleg, because the most common version, 1994's Movie Play Gold CD issue of this, is flat-out terrible.  Too bassy (FAR too bassy), low-quality source material, the works.  I suspect the best bootleg version of this session is the original 1981 LP issue (also on RZM), but I don't have a line on a decent transfer of it.

Legend has it that RZM is code for (Alan) Erasmus, an original Factory partner who, with Tony Wilson and Peter Saville, started Factory Records in 1978.  The legend states that Erasmus (say it aloud, and then say R-Z-M) arranged the 1981 bootleg release of the aborted 1978 album, and then further arranged for the material's first appearance on CD in 1989.  Frankly, I believe it.

None of the CD releases of this set have been spectacular in sound quality.  I think the problem is that the original tape was not that great, and that the mastering-for-CD process - possibly to disguise vinyl lineage, as I suspect that the original LP was the ultimate source for all the various CD issues - really clamped down on the upper midrange and higher frequencies.  It's always sounded muffled, and boomy (the 1994 Movie Play Gold release, with the baby on the cover, is the worst in this regard).  I've fixed this.  I've also fixed up some of the harsher song starts, as it's easy in the digital domain (ain't no ProToolin' in 1978!) and the CD has a few of the intros cut off.  Why did I fix them?  Because the missed intro into "Transmission" has always bugged me, among others.  "Interzone" too.

I think this is the best we're going to get with this material.  Already it blows the few tracks released on 1997's Heart and Soul box set away, and unless someone leaks the original mixdown tape from the 1978 session, we won't find better.  That said, I do have a line on a dub of a band member's personal cassette copy of this session, but I don't have it handy and what I remember from listening to it when I did was that it wasn't really all that much different or better than the '89 CD release.

Joy Division

"Warsaw"

(Unreleased May 1978 album sessions)

RZM CD 01 (1989 pressing)

November 2012 Analog Loyalist mastering in FLAC

1.      The Drawback

2.      Leaders of Men

3.      They Walked In Line

4.      Failures (of the Modern Man)

5.      Novelty

6.      No Love Lost

7.      Transmission

8.      (Living In The) Ice Age

9.      Interzone

10.   Warsaw

11.   Shadowplay