Joy Division - Closer

Factory

July 18th, 1980.

Joy Division's freezing farewell turns 45. Closer is number 25 in the Factory catalogue - FACT 25. An artistic statement cemented in time, this is the way, step inside.....

Released two months after the death of frontman Ian Curtis, and a North American tour which would not materialise, Closer - meaning less distant/the end of something, the interpretation is in your hands - would see the final chapter in Joy Division's soon to be iconic output come to a close(the end). The Gothic malaise that the band would set seeped deep inside the world of music's psyche. 

Step into into the disco at the end of time. Death's disco - the final dance. The moving mausoleum. All-black attire. It's the house of Gothic horror: twisted bodies, contorted limbs, snapped ankles, blue lips, pale faces. Losing life like sand through hands. A sense of time is out of reach. An infinity of dwindling hope and humdrum aperture. A melancholia which is as close to home as has ever been. A deep rooted decay of the mind. Waking up inside of that sinking feeling. The bed swallows your soul. The colour, yet to come around. 

"If you could just see the beauty, the things that I fail to describe."

The dichotomy of "Isolation" comes in the danceable and somewhat joyous musicianship, and the songwriter that finds his being down in the dumps. It's the only ray of hope on the album, and its squandered. 

"This is a crisis I knew had to come, destroying the balance I kept."

The seesaw which once maintained is now out of favour; out of order; out of balance. Stuck in the mud and it's sinking like quicksand. Help makes it sink faster. It wants you all to itself. Things fall waywards, fast. The depth is deeper than the soul can sense. A bottomless pit. 

"Can I go on with this train of events, disturbing and hurting my mind."

The whisper-y, hissed vocals which occur on the left channel of "Passover" is the stuff that nightmares are made of. The spacious, sizzling snare hits echo out like a tight mineshaft is swallowing them. Hi-hats, like a gas cooker starting up, tick-tick-tick like a clock running down to doomsday. 

Heart and soul, one will burn. The spiritual or the physical. Maybe you'll have to sacrifice one to find the the other. The witness inside watches the trees and leaves as they fall. Detached. Scratching the surface of existence. Suffering in silence, the silence is loud. Where have they been? Like puppets on a string. Skin suits with no soul; no awareness of the depth suffocating them at each and every step. 

"The past is now part of my future, the present is well of hand."

The lone cowboy rides off into the night.