Sometime last month I took around a 280 mile round trip from my hometown to the city of Manchester to attend the True Faith Exhibition. I would be lying if I didn't say that a big factor in that journey was the limited pressings of both Closer by Joy Division and Power, Corruption and Lies by New Order on sale.
However, at a £35 price tag a piece, I kept myself to one or the other. I had copies of both, and they are both original (or at the least, early) presses; but my copy of Closer has definitely been a little more 'loved' than P,C&L so I justified that this album was more in need of an upgrade.
The record came in a special printed polysleeve with the details of the gallery on the far left.
On the shrink was this hype sticker too. The 2007 remasters are from (I assume) the Rhino represses. 180gm is definitely the way to go for this. The pressing sounds incredibly clean and really defines how well this record has aged. It still sounds timeless to this day, and I'm incredibly thankful that this came in ahead of another repress of Unknown Pleasures.
As some kind of consolation prize, I also picked up this postcard of 'A Basket of Roses' by Fantin-Latour. It seems fitting to own it in a way, as the original reference from Peter Saville picking this as the artwork for P,C&L came from a postcard he bought. In true archivist fashion, I bought one to stay in the sleeve of the LP, and one that is currently on my fridge at home.
Finally, here is a close up of the text from the printed jacket for the LP. As you can see, this variant is limited to 1000, as was the copies of Power, Corruption and Lies (in Silver vinyl). Considering they were still readily available at the shop on my visit, they have been fetching silly money on Discogs and eBay. Closer has a Discogs highest price of £100, as does Power, Corruption and Lies. This fact comes as particularly upsetting when you figure that the exhibition was truly incredible too. Among performance films, archive posters and Raf Simons Parkas was the highlight of being within touching distance of Ian Curtis' handwritten lyrics for Love Will Tear Us Apart.
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