Today (May 18th) marks the 40th anniversary of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis' death. The iconic post-punk vocalist died by suicide at the age of 23, leaving behind him a still deeply resonant catalog of music that has inspired everyone from Nine Inch Nails and Deftones to Mark Lanegan and Cold Cave. The latter pair were asked to participate in Headstock Festival's free online event "Moving Through Silence: Celebrating the Life of Ian Curtis" alongside current New Order/former Joy Division members Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris, the Killers' Brandon Flowers and others. Lanegan and Cold Cave teamed for a stirring rehearsal-room cover of Joy Division's "Isolation," a fitting song choice in our age of quarantine. Watch above — the video features Lanegan and Cold Cave's Wesley Eisold, Amy Lee, Shelley Brien and Ryan McMahon.
"Moving Through Silence: Celebrating the Life of Ian Curtis," hosted by Headstock and DJ-writer Dave Haslam, is being livestreamed between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. U.K. time on United We Stream, and will also help mark the beginning of Mental Health Awareness Week.
The "Isolation" cover is hardly the first time that Lanegan and Eisold have collaborated. Last year, the two teamed up onstage at the Psycho Las Vegas festival for a duet on Lanegan's "Playing Nero." Earlier this year, Eisold published via his Heartworm Press a book of poetry, Plague Poems, penned by Lanegan and himself. A collection of 23 poems — "words of dystopian desolation," as the official description puts it — the volume can be purchased at shop.theheartworm.com.
