Jamie Oliver finds Joy Division and New Order master tapes in basement

15 February 2012

by Poppy Reid

Naked Chef Jamie Oliver discovered a haul of treasure worth over one million pounds in the basement of a Manchester restaurant he recently bought.

Holy Moly reported that among the jewels, gold and a collection of guns were rare Joy Division and New Order master tapes. The restaurant building was previously a branch of Midland bank.

The musical goldmine was hidden in a safety deposit box among hundreds of other boxes under the old bank. Attempts to find the owners of most boxes were futile so the Bank of England opened each using a drill.

The celebrity chef has since given all the findings to the national treasury.

In 2008, Exclaim! reported Peter Hook was unhappy with a collection of reissues from the band and blames the sonic "mess" on the need for proper masters, not the editions used from other's collections.

See below for the official statement Hook released on the reissues.

This is a very difficult one. We are aware of the problems and because we did not have finished product to listen to, it has, shall we say... slipped through the net. My great friend Claude Flowers has taken it on himself to sort this mess out personally, but please be aware that, after the fact, it is going to be very difficult, unfortunately, because many of you have purchased them already (a great compliment in itself). We are doing all we can to try and get fresh masters made and available somehow to try and remedy the situation, so please bear with us.

I have said before how difficult it is compiling this stuff, the masters Steve [Morris] and I listened to were all basically from people's collections, so it was then left to someone in the library department to compile, as much as possible, from original masters. This is where it seems to have gone wrong. Unfortunately, it is industry standard these days to not have production masters of the CDs or the sleeves, much to Pete Saville's amazement, but that's just the way it is. Hopefully they might resurrect the process after this.

Here's hoping,

Hooky

Needless to say fans should expect a more sonically pleasing reissue in the future.

Next month, New Order will make their first visit to Australia in ten years for the annual Future Music Festival (sans-Hooky). The pioneers of new wave are also set to play two sideshow dates on March 1 in Melbourne and March 7 in Sydney.