Joe Theobald, aka DJ Captain Wormhole, Looks at all things vinyl 

“I’D like to reassemble it on the roof” (Stephen Morris’s drum kit).

I don’t know if Martin Hannett ever actually said that, but it’s a useful point of reference as many people (younger folk like me, who weren’t around when they originally orchestrated ‘the Manchester sound’) will know of Hannett via Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People or maybe Anton Corbijn’s Closer.

Hannett was the in-house, drug addled producer (and a director) for Factory Records. He’s most famous for his work on Joy Division’s LPs, Unknown Pleasure and Closer, taking their raw and energetic live sound, boiling it up in a spoon and injecting a severe hypodermic shot of spatial, caustic, post-punk into the ears of every generation since.

Don’t draw the line there though. Hannett was responsible for a lot more than that. Initially he gained notoriety as Martin Zero, producing The Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch EP, which is commonly referred to as the first independent punk record. Take 10 minutes to give it a listen. Tony Wilson of Factory Records cited Hannett as a catalyst for the way modern music sounds.

His primary obsession was always the drums; isolating, relooping, compressing, delaying, basically just effing around with the sound to his heart’s content. According to Hannett, “the snare drum is the essence of rock and roll”.

The mad genius of Manchester, a punk Phil Spector, part audio alchemist, part paranoid lunatic; if you’ve any interest in finding out more about him then there’s a four-hour Chris Hewitt documentary - called “He wasn’t just the 5th member of Joy Division” – A film about Martin Hannett. Or maybe pick up the new book, Martin Hannett; His Equipment and Strawberry Studios. Apparently it’s porn for audio-tech nerds and contains lots of Hannett doodles too.

  • Suggested listening: The Buzzcocks – Time’s Up John
  • Cooper Clarke – I Don’t Want To Be Nice
  • Joy Division – Isolation and Atmosphere
  • Magazine - Philadelphia
  • New Order – Cries and Whispers
  • New Fast Automatic Daffodils – Get Better