• Return Of The Durruti Column Rarlabs

The Durutti Column was primarily the vehicle of Vini Reilly, a guitarist born in Manchester, England, in 1953. As a child, Reilly first took up the piano, drawing inspiration from greats like Art Tatum and Fats Waller, before learning to play guitar at the age of ten. Despite an early affection for folk and jazz, Reilly ultimately became swept up by the punk movement, and in 1977 he joined the group Ed Banger & the Nosebleeds. In 1978, Factory Records founder Tony Wilson invited Reilly to join a group dubbed The Durutti Column, the name inspired by the Spanish Civil War anarchist Buenaventura Durruti and a Situationists Internationale comic strip of the 1960s. Along with Reilly, the nascent band included guitarist Dave Rowbotham, drummer Chris Joyce, vocalist Phil Rainford, and bassist Tony Bowers; following a handful of performances, Rainford was fired, and after recording a pair of tracks for the EP 'A Factory Sampler', Rowbotham, Joyce, and Bowers broke off to form The Mothmen, leaving The Durutti Column the sole province of Vini Reilly. (Joyce and Bowers would later join the more popular Simply Red.). Recorded with the aid of a few session musicians and released in a sandpaper sleeve, the debut ' The Return of the Durutti Column', a collection of atmospheric instrumentals, appeared in 1980.

With 1981's pastoral ' LC', recorded with drummer Bruce Mitchell (who remained a frequent collaborator), Reilly attempted vocals on a few tracks, and continued expanding his palette with a pair of explorations of chamber music, 1982's ' Another Setting' and 1984's ' Without Mercy'. Electronic rhythms, meanwhile, emerged as the pivotal element of 1985's ' Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say'. After 1985's live effort ' Domo Arigato', ' Circuses and Bread' marked a return to the densely constructed guitar textures of previous works, while 1987's eclectic ' The Guitar and Other Machines' ranked among The Durutti Column's most ambitious works to date. In 1988, Reilly backed Morrissey (also an alumnus of The Nosebleeds) on his solo debut, 'Viva Hate', before returning to The Durutti Column for the release of a 1989 LP titled ' Vini Reilly', another diverse affair that incorporated vocal samples from Otis Redding, Annie Lennox, Tracy Chapman, and opera star Joan Sutherland.

Released in 1990, the aggressive ' Obey the Time' preceded 1991's ' Lips That Would Kiss Form Prayers to Broken Stone', a collection of singles, rarities, and unreleased material. After a long layoff (during which Rowbotham happened to be slain by an axe murderer, inspiring the ' 'Cowboy Dave'), The Durutti Column returned in 1995 with ' Sex and Death', followed a year later by ' Fidelity', which fused dance beats with Reilly's guitar lines.

Reilly issued several albums throughout the 2000s, from archival concert recordings to such studio efforts as ' Treatise on the Steppenwolf', a soundtrack augmenting the experimental theater production of the same name, as well as 2009's heart-wrenching effort ' Love in the Time of Recession'. The instrumental suite ' Paean to Wilson', composed in 2009, was some of Reilly's most personal work, written for his late friend and most passionate supporter, the late Tony Wilson. Initially scheduled for limited release in 2009, it was granted wider distribution early the following year.

Return Of The Durruti Column Rarlabs

It would be hard to think of an album less in line with the majority of Factory's output in the late 70s than The Return Of The Durutti Column. The Column, were originally put together as a ‘proper’ band by Factory founders, Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus.

But by the time this album became fact (hoho) Wilson’s wilful disposition had seen to it that it was just guitarist Vini Reilly who held onto the name. Oh, and a producer by the name of Martin Hannett.Hannett’s idiosyncracies are well documented. His bullying and cajoling of Joy Division to invest in electronics was the tip of the iceberg. The deeply personal vision of this troubled man only found voice when he sat behind a mixing desk. Having mined the possibilities of digital delay on Unknown Pleasures, he saw, in Reilly, a fellow traveller who could indulge his passions for more abstract fare.Reilly himself was a devoted student of the six stringed kind of ambience that had more to do with the krautrock stylings of Ashra’s Manuel Gottsching than anything that emerged from a Detroit garage.

This was (originally) an album of singularly pretty instrumentals, drenched in reverb and chiming in some kind of delicate, yet still somewhat chilly imaginary space.The two men worked as co-musicians on this project, and it was hannett’s synth washes underpinning Reilly’s arpeggios that anchored the work which in future years become more ethereal and less rooted in grim Noerthern reality.The Return a bloody-minded contradiction of everything Factory stood for at that time. As if to underline its refusal to sit happily with its playmates, initial copies came housed in a sandpaper sleeve that would rub horribly against its neighbours: A situationist trick that, while as arch as the band’s name (appropriated from the Spanish civil war), still signalled Hannett and Reilly’s extreme faith in their vision. Hannett’s wayward nature would prove his undoing, while Vini merely kept on spiralling into some crystaline alternative universe. The Return is a perfect meeting of minds.