LONDON RECORDS 31st July 2026
The Durutti Column is more than Vini Reilly, legendary though he is. It’s easy to love the fragile, outsider artist Vini and even easier to love his amazing and unique guitar work but this album is more than that and it’s apparent from the outset. Keir Stewart provides textures with guitar, bass, keys and samples and Bruce Mitchell, drums that are more a jazz commentary than any rock drums. The band don’t even have to be in the same room for the unique feeling to manifest. It’s a hovering, thoughtful deep space meditation.
Obviously we can’t discount the utterly distinctive guitar voice of Reilly, plucking on the thinnest strings known to humankind, echoing through the circuits, creating multiple voices at once but that isn’t all it is. Having fought through his own special waywardness and a stroke fifteen years ago that left him playing slower but still with his unmistakeable voice, Vini succeeds despite himself. Honoured by the Manchester posse, his come-back concert 20-odd years back was distinguished by everyone who was anyone in the audience, Hooky, Mark E Smith, etc. And of course, his was the sound that made Morrisey’s album, ‘Viva Hate’. And of course, after the come-back, Vini disappeared again, to be rescued from obscurity now and again by friends or lovers. And here we are, fifteen years since the last album.
Forty-six years ago, the debut, with it’s famous sandpaper sleeve, stood out for Vini Reilly’s guitar sound as much as the art world aesthetics of the sleeve and title. Now, not quite the creative force he was, this sees fellow travellers step up. The improvisational approach is absolutely upfront and ever-present, with the feeling that guitar parts are being created before our ears. Bruce Mitchell talks about ideas being captured in a single take, before they become overworked, leaving Keir Stewart to capture ideas rather than refine them. Sessions focussed on immediacy and minimal equipment, some even caught in Reilly’s kitchen over the space of a few years. In fact, the thing that hangs the album together isn’t a time or a set of sessions, it’s a unity of feeling. ‘Vapour in a Matchbox’ encapsulates this ephemeral-becomes-eternal feeling in an instrumental pop piece.
We shift between pure instrumentals and songs, between free improvisations and pieces with defined rhythm tracks. There’s even an orchestral octet where Stewart has arranged ‘For Belgian Friends’ into a different entity – ‘For Friends Everywhere’. In ‘Liars’, Reilly intones his words, simple, hypnotic, heartfelt – “I’m sorry, I love you”. ‘Scammers’ sees Vini’s voice again. I’m detecting a bitter theme here….
Caolfhionn Rose adds vocals to ‘Agonistes’, colouring the piece. It’s not the only classics inference here, with an instrumental titled ‘Time Present and Past’, quoting from TS Elliott’s classics-infused Four Quartets. Caolfhionn is also the major mover on ‘Sargasso Sea’, with her piano and voice fitting the mood but standing almost apart from the Durutti Column trio. Perhaps The Durutti Column are an idea as well as a physical presence. Just listen to ‘All They See Is Fire’ to see how the concept of the band and the song are deepened by the addition of the warmth of a french horn.
Renascent means ‘reborn’ but I’ll bet that this will see the beloved Mr Reilly quietly drift away again for a few years, as is his wont. But for now, we have this, available in a bewildering range of formats and colours (digital, CD, vinyl, cassette, box set, yellow, black, purple, green). Me, I just need the music and I don’t need any sandpaper sleeves. This is a special mood and one I’ll keep returning to.
Ross McGibbon
We greatly enjoyed talking to Vini back in 2003. Have a read if you want to know why he hates Moby, what strings he uses or how come he just keeps “playing the same tune over and over again.”