Factory Benelux

The Durutti Column \ The Return of the Durutti Column [FBN 114 CD]

A remastered CD edition of landmark album The Return of the Durutti Column, housed in the Dufy sleeve issued by Factory Records in 1980.

A collaboration between virtuoso guitarist Vini Reilly and legendary Manchester producer Martin Hannett, The Return Of The Durutti Column paired Reilly's non-rock sketches with Hannett's electronic textures to produce "perfectly realised, correctly ambient and inventive music." This new 2014 edition on Factory Benelux includes the 9 tracks included on the first Factory pressing, as well as all six 6 tracks which formed side two of the rare second pressing (tracks 14 to 19). Also featured are the two Martin Hannett 'test card' flex-disc tracks, and Madeleine and Lips That Would Kiss, both previously issued as a 12-inch single on Factory Benelux in October 1980.

The cover art restores the second jacket design issued by Factory from mid-1980 onwards, featuring three miniatures of paintings by Raoul Dufy. The booklet features period Durutti images by photographer Daniel Meadows, and extensive liner notes with quotes from Vini Reilly, Martin Hannett, Tony Wilson, Peter Saville, Daniel Meadows, John Brierley, Bruce Mitchell and members of Joy Division, who assembled most of the sandpaper originals.

The CD can also be ordered with an optional bonus DVD (PAL format) featuring an extended live improvisation by Vini Reilly, Martin Hannett and Steve Hopkins, taped for television in 1980 and included on Factory's pioneering Video Circus compilation.

CD tracklist:

1. Sketch for Summer
2. Requiem for a Father
3. Katharine
4. Conduct
5. Beginning
6. Jazz
7. Sketch for Winter
8. Collette
9. In 'D'
10. Lips That Would Kiss
11. Madeleine
12. The First Aspect of the Same Thing
13. The Second Aspect of the Same Thing
14. Untitled
15. Jazz
16. Sketch for Winter
17. Collette
18. Beginning
19. In 'D'

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Reviews:

"Vini Reilly's mercurial guitar epic. In open defiance of post-punk trend Reilly's jazzy electric guitar miniatures are free of ideology but their simple beauty shines through. 9 out of 10" (Uncut, 02/2014)

"Vinyl package of the month. In January 1980 Fact 14 came with one of the most (in)famous record sleeves ever, yet one oddly suited to Vini Reilly's formless ambient guitar pieces that both composer and Tony Wilson saw as a conceptual attack on post-punk rock elitism. As befits the vinyl museum of modern LP repackaging, this lushly remastered reissue places the sandpaper safely behind re-sealable wallet and a die-cut of the original Peter Saville Factory logo, while the bonus flexi-disc (always scratched) is now a hard vinyl 7-inch" (Mojo, 03/2014)

"Nine short guitar instrumentals tracing complex but enduring melodies - meditative, brittle and frequently beautiful. Vini Reilly's classical inclinations were recontextualised by Martin Hannett's production, the sound radical but in the style of a velvet revolution" (Classic Pop, 01/2014)

"The Durutti Column return in streamlined form (in a sandpaper cover). One Vini Reilly is in charge, assisted by Martin 'Zero' Hannett on switchblade doctoring, funny noises, tape loop and 'free' plastic single. His new music is reflective, smooth and quiet. He bends, phases and duets ice blues into the bob and weave of chopped down cross currents; solitary melodies are picked through a sketchbook of recollections. The Return of the Durutti Column is perfectly realised, correctly ambient and inventive music; the beauty of it is that Vini Reilly offers it when he does and how he does. Maybe the punks will sneer and think it's hippy noodling, but the hippies probably won't dare to listen anyway" (NME, 01/1980)

Vini Reilly's partnership with Martin Hannett would be revived in spectacular form on his debut LP, now re-issued by Factory Benelux. The delay and reverb Hannett used to such stunning effect on Unknown Pleasures created space and warmth for Reilly's ambient leanings. "Maybe the punks will sneer and think it's hippy noodling," said NME at the time. But the spontaneity and free experimentation of a track like Conduct deserves its place in the post punk canon alongside PiL's Poptones. Released with a die-cut glasspaper sleeve (in tribute to the Situationist inspired original) and a bonus of Hannett's experimental Testcard 7", this is pretty much essential" (The Quietus, 01/2014)

"Reilly's rationale here reflects his fear that the new wave might have knocked down all the walls of rock dogma only to put up another set, and he makes his statement as a retaliatory indictment of a predominant rock syndrome: preoccupation with form. His quest to create formless rock music won't appeal to elitists, but will get through to the people who really understand where he's at. Hence, for instance, his contempt on Conduct for the rule that 4ths and 5ths don't mix. Various other tricks, which doubtless not many people beyond Reilly could identify, pervade the pieces elsewhere. Ostensibly, the sum total is way out of time. Reilly sees himself as part of the new wave, but his music here combines the mid-stream romanticism of Jerry Garcia, Peter Green (even briefly Hank Marvin) with the freeform sounds usually associated with someone like Keith Jarrett. But so lyrical and ingenious are the juxtapositions of melodies and rhythms that contemporary context hardly comes into it. In contrast to the excesses of new wave, such accessible fringe music actually makes welcome good sense. Don't underestimate the sandpaper cover, though - Factory will be hearing from my lawyers" (Sounds, 01/1980)

"A gloriously-packaged facsimile of Vini Reilly's debut album, originally released in a gritty sandpaper sleeve on the typically anarchic Factory Records (Fact 14), only this time with added protective die-cut sleeve and a bonus hard-vinyl 7", as opposed to a cheap flexi. Seriously, what's not to like? Actually, nothing: The Return of the Durutti Column is a benchmark, a landmark, a timeless template by which all of Reilly's successive works have, rightly or wrongly, been judged. The music hasn't been tampered with - it sounds as fresh, carefree, elegiac, intimate and otherworldly as it did when first issued 34 years ago, a playground for the precocious talents of the creative guitarist and his engineering stooge Martin Hannett, whose pulsating synth footprints compliment the pastoral vignettes, rather than hamper them. Sketch For Summer (and Winter), Conduct, Jazz, Requiem For a Father - they're here in all their understated original beauty, with the added bonus of both sides of the single Lips That Would Kiss and the superior Madeleine, coupled to the end of side two. Both prove to be perfect bed-partners for the preceding tracks, with pin-sharp melodies and itchy, shuffly beat-boxes present and correct" (Flipside, 12/2013)