The Durutti Column - The Return of the Durutti Column

Abelardo request. First album from Vini Reilly's somber, melancholic post punk outfit.With heavy involvement from Martin Hannett and vocal contributions from Clock DVA's Jeremy Kerr. A masterpiece.

"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." - Chris Jones

Katherine