Original Joy Division, New Order master tapes ‘rescued and put up for sale’


tapes

Original master tapes of albums recorded by the likes of Joy Division, New Order and The Psychedelic Furs have apparently been rescued from a rubbish bin and are now up for sale.

The tapes – once a part of producer Martin Hannett‘s collection and which include Joy Division’s classic debut ‘Unknown Pleasures‘ – have seemingly been saved by Julia Adamson, who once served as personal assistant to Hannett before moving on to become a sound engineer at Manchester’s legendary Strawberry Studios during the 1980s.

Adamson doesn’t specify how or where the masters were found, but in a post on Facebook, she has now offered them to the highest bidder after allegedly receiving a hostile response from the musicians who were a part of the bands in question.

“I have looked after these tapes for a long time and when I approached the artists (who were my first port of call) I was subjected to accusations and abuse,” she writes. “So I don’t really care anymore. I know they are worth something to a collector and good luck to them.”

“The quality of Unknown Pleasures far surpasses the mastering from vinyl over the years (they lost the master tapes long ago, these are copy masters, and outtakes, that I assure you are quite splendid).”

Adamson now runs Invisible Girl Records, and adds that ‘digital copies will be available for all the artists and record companies’.

Martin Hannett, a hugely talented and respected producer, became a leading figure in the story of Factory Records and the 80s British music scene as a whole. Affected by drug and alcohol problems for most of that time, he died of heart failure in 1991.


Learn More