"LC" Japanese release liner notes
Translated by Kumi Tatsukawa
Edited by R Stanzel

[ "The liner notes mainly show the author's feeling (no story about
  the Durutti Column or criticism), which is hard to translate for
  someone who is not a native English speaker.  She is very
  imaginatively telling her feelings.  It was like translating
  poems..." -KT ]

The Durutti Column

The Durutti Column started to play in Manchester England around 1978.
In those days, Punk/New Wave music were very popular.  It is
surprising that the British music scene created such music outside
this mainstream.  Though it is fashionable to make acoustic music now,
the Durutti Column made their first album in October 1979.

Before their first album, the omnibus album 'Factory Sample' included
some of their pieces.  After that, their albums seem to be solo
projects by Vini Reilly, but they were an ordinary new band when
'Factory Sample' was released.  Though I don't know why they changed
to solo projects by him, this second album 'L.C.' is covered with his
wonderful sensitivity as well as their first one.

Bruce Mitchell joined as a drum percussion player for this album.

The sound has become sophisticated, compared with their previous
album, which was primitive and simple.  The ensemble is also
exquisitely beautiful.  Every time I listen to their music, it reminds
me of fresh impressions.  Though it is comfortable to listen to, it
could never flow through my ear easily.  It is very delicate though
not nervous and had the pureness and the freeness like children
playing with the sound.

It is fresh like clear wind blowing through a room and also has deep
relish like listening to the sound of snow falling on a cold day.

I think it is so gentle sounding that it goes straight into listening
peoples' hearts and makes color and phase change by their images.  I
guess that it is the reason why it is so fresh every time.

Figuratively speaking, I think their music is like water.  Though what
is in the sea, what is in the river and what comes down from the sky
are all same water, each of them has a different look and looks
differently according to peoples' environment and feelings.

I wonder if my feelings and environment, maybe the air and the
temperature, act on The Durutti Column music and makes me feel
kaleidoscopically beautiful.

When it snows silently and I listen to this music alone in a room, the
sound comes out from the speaker certainly but I feel that the silence
is getting deeper.  And when it is very sunny in the morning, the
light from the porch and the sounds are mixed, the warm air is carried
into the room.  I can always feel something new like that.

I seldom catch a cold but I was down with fever for three days.  It
was so heavy that I had a headache, was with the worst conditions and
couldn't smoke nor have coffee.  What I was listening to all day was
The Durutti Column.  When I was taking a nap while listening to this,
the sound was coming near and going away.  It was like wandering in a
dream.  I dreamed a lot, in fragments.  They were not bad dreams but
something strange and vacant.

I use The Durutti Column as music therapy like that.  This proves that
their music is relaxing and comfortable for me indeed.  It is like a
clear barrier which gently wraps me.

Incidentally, when I caught a cold, I listened to Johnny Thunder live
to be refreshed but it didn't work.  It is important to choose a music
for one's health condition.

I think that the music which is good for me is like 'a living
product'.  Though records and CDs are recorded and duplicated by
machines, they strangely have the player's feeling, energy and also
spirits.  So records are living products.  They impress and spark
listeners.  And the effect which we can't see acts on us strongly.
Especially it has more powerful influence than others for people who
find something spiritual in music.

For me, a record that makes me feel the element of 'a living product'
is a good one.  When I listen to a record the first time, I
distinguish it from others.  Records which look like 'artificial
products' are removed from my shelf.  From that point of view, The
Durutti Column is very organic and 'a living product'.  So I think
that it makes people feel differently by their condition and feel
something beyond old or new.

The music industry makes the present fashion, follows it, destroys it
by itself and makes a new one again.  People collect the information
and worry about next fashion without having time to judge the sounds
by themselves.  The situation is comical.  I think it needs energy but
only the waste is left.

In such a circumstance, the existence of The Durutti Column is very
important for me.  I'd keep it secretly in the drawer of my desk.

Although I don't know if I can write a such thing in a liner note, I
don't feel like saying 'Please listen to this great CD'.  I just enjoy
this like opening my favorite old music box and listening the tune
alone.  This may be a personal music.

And there is another thing to write:  The Durutti Column is very
imaginative.  It's like a picture more than an image, a light
watercolor or a pastel rather than a oil painting.  If I listen to
this, unintentional images come into my mind in spite of myself.  Some
of them are real pictures, and others look like a scene in a movie
that I saw before, a memory in my childhood, and a scene that I had
never seen.  I enjoy The Durutti Column like this.

Sachiho Kojima