I've been listening to Durutti Column and the music of Vini Reilly since the late 1980s and I still regularly find new things to enjoy in Vini's back catalogue, songs and tracks that I've missed or not heard properly before. Vini was so prolific that he often gave music to labels other than Factory, just to get it out there. A friend recently lent me the Sporadic Recordings CDs, three limited edition discs of recordings that came out at various points between 1989 and 2007, and there's a wealth of songs on the discs, some of which I knew (some were released as extras when his Factory albums were repackaged and re- released, some I've stumbled across on Youtube or gone looking for via interviews). I thoght some of these, together with some other possibly lesser known Durutti Column songs, would make a good thirty minute mix for my Sunday series.
Half An Hour Of Durutti Column
- Sketch Of A Manchester Summer 1989
- Royal Infirmary
- Dry
- 30 Oldham Street
- Take Some Time Out
- Bordeaux
- People's Pleasure Park (Version)
- [Canadian Customs]
There's a strong sense of place in Vini's songs and their titles. He often names songs for or about places. This mix kicks off with a Sporadic recording track, one of my favourite DC songs, recorded on a very rainy day in June 1989, Vini taping the sound of West Didsbury rainfall and playing along with it. Royal Infirmary is from 1986's Circuses And Bread album, a minimal, haunting piece for piano and guitar. Dry was the title track of a 1991 album that came out on Materiali Sonori, an Italian label, and is named after the bar Factory opened on Oldham Street, Manchester. The drum machine and synth backing to Vini's guitar playing is superb- it's followed by a version of the same song, this time named after Dry's address (released on the Sporadic Recordings). Dry had it's own Factory number- Dry201. When it opened there wasn't much else like it in Manchester and it was in a then very unfashionable and semi- run down part of town (today's Northern Quarter).
Take Some Time was recorded for Factory but shelved until 2012 when it was on the Short Stories For Pauline album, a lost/ found treasure trove of Durutti Column songs. Bordeaux is on 1983's Another Setting (Fact 74). People's Pleasure Park is from the Sporadic Recordings- the original version came out on 1989's Vini Reilly album, Bruce Mitchell's drumming particularly on point. [Canadian Customs] closes The Sporadic Recordings Disc 2 (from 2007) and is a couple of minutes of Vini playing guitar followed by some audio of the group going through customs on their way from Canada to the US. When challenged by the border guard about what kind of music they play Vini shoots back, 'avant garde jazz classical'.
