A guide to the world of contemporary and electronic music.

'Joy Division: Piece by Piece' is the definitive collection of writings on the legendary cult band. 2007 sees the release of Control, the biographical film about the brief and tragic life of the band's vocalist, Ian Curtis, who committed suicide by hanging in May 1980. These complete writings, by Paul Morley, on Joy Division are both contemporary and retrospective.

With meanings, its hidden depths, and its obvious shallowness, this book gives an explanation and a justification of tracks that might be included on a two-disc discography of seminal moments in pop music history. It decodes the sexily philosophical things crawling through the moist, scratchy undergrowth of rock and roll.

Morley revisits the past he has long struggled to forget: his childhood in Stockport, his teenage years, and the unfathomable suicide of his depressive father. He also considers how the deaths of Ian Curtis, Elvis Presley and Marc Bolan might have had an impact on the story.