To: Bios_&_Reviews@mail.magic.ca
From: PolyGram@mail.magic.ca (PolyGram Canada)
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 10:03:35 EST
Subject: Durutti Column launches Factory Too
SEX AND DEATH AND FACTORY, TOO:
THE RETURN OF THE DURUTTI COLUMN
Rising from the ashes of historic Manchester-based label Factory
(one-time home to groundbreaking bands like Joy Division, James,
Happy Mondays, A Certain Ratio and New Order), Mercury/Polydor are
proud to bring a new era of challenging and esoteric music to you
through a brand new label, Factory Too.
It is more than a little appropriate that the first release on
Factory Too should be a new work by The Durutti Column, for it was
with the guitar of Vini Reilly that Factory (one) began back in
1978. Sex And Death, featuring standout tracks like "The Rest Of
My Life", "My Irascible Friend", and "Where I Should Be", is a
splendid return to form for these survivors of the scene that
nearly celebrated itself into oblivion.
Originally, The Durutti Column that signed to Factory were just a
drummer who later joined Simply Red and a rhythm guitarist who
found fame when he was axed to death in a horrific murder (later
immortalized in the Happy Mondays' song "Cowboy Dave"). The
addition, on the 24th of January 1978, of `that genius guitarist
who's always ill', Vini Reilly, was sufficient grounds for managers
Alan Erasmus and Anthony Wilson to launch Factory Records in May
1978. This led to the first Factory Record, A Factory Sample, an
EP featuring Durutti Column, Joy Division and Cabaret Voltaire in
January 1979.
The group soon exploded in a battle over producers and in the
spring of 1979, The Durutti Column, by now just Vini, went into
Cargo Studios for an experimental session with legendary producer
Martin Hannett. The experiment lasted just two days but produced
the album The Return Of The Durutti Column, which introduced the
world to the fragile instrumental beauty of Vini Reilly's guitar.
In 1980 Vini teamed up with drummer Bruce Mitchell, and together
they produced the second Durutti album L.C.. The relationship with
the guiding hands of Mitchell continues to this day, and his
skillful work can still be made out amongst the welter of samples
and rhythm synthesizers which feature on modern Durutti Column
recordings.
After the 1982 album Another Setting, Vini began experimenting with
further instrumentation, featuring full string and horn sections on
the 1984 release Without Mercy, a collection of music based around
Keats' poetry. The Durutti Column became a four piece in 1986,
with Vini and Bruce augmented by the trumpet of Tim Kellett (also
later of Simply Red) and the viola of John Metcalfe. This lineup
produced Circuses And Bread, and the live album Domo Arigato.
A `this is the story so far' release entitled Valuable Passages
surfaced in 1987, and was followed by the purchase of some
interesting sampling equipment in 1988. The possibilities of the
new technology led Vini into unexplored areas of composition, and
in 1988 The Guitar And Other Machines was released. 1989 saw a
second album in this style which seemed to perfect those new
possibilities; the eponymously titled Vini Reilly stands out in the
seriously beloved collections of Durutti fans.
In 1991, working with some of the best dance music engineers in
Manchester, the Durutti Column released Obey The Time, which again
shrugged off their 'ambient music' tag by giving a real edge to the
delicate melodies and emotional depths of Vini's music. Obey The
Time was to be the last for Factory Records, who were approaching
a catastrophic and climactic demise that ended in receivership.
In October 1993, Vini went into the studio with his friend and
favourite producer Stephen Street (Blur, The Smiths, The
Cranberries, as well as two previous Reilly albums). The resulting
album, Sex And Death -- as Reilly says, "Well, that's what
everything I write is about... sex... and death" -- was recorded in
Manchester and mixed in London. Performed mostly by Reilly,
Mitchell and Metcalfe, it also features Street and an old Factory
cohort named Peter Hook on (what else?) bass. It marks the first
studio album for The Durutti Column in nearly four years; the
significance of its status as Factory Too's first pressing is lost
on no-one.
Factory Too are overjoyed that Sex And Death will be their first
release. A spokesperson for the new label commented: "It isn't
just that it is historically and emotionally significant -- Vini's
work is all about the simplicity of music, the beauty of melody and
the fact that there is something about popular music that is, to
put it simply, important. If Factory Too is to have any relevance
it has to be about exactly those same things."
Vini and Bruce are getting ready to play some gigs, and in the
meantime they are locked away somewhere with an Atari computer and
a new sampler working on whatever comes next for The Durutti
Column. Vini still gets ill in his Proustian way, but it may have
more to do with his meditations on Sex And Death than it does with
his stomach. (February 1995)
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"Sex & Death" will be instores Feb. 22