Misnamed
after Buenaventura Durruti’s anarchist group that fought in the Spanish civil
war, the Durutti Column is a music project devised by Factory founder Tony
Wilson and revolving around guitar prodigy Vini Reilly. Although Reilly started
playing music on the piano at an early age, he soon became interested in the
harmonic possibilities of electric guitar. Reilly therefore made use of his
solid background in classical music to produce atmospheric soundscapes, which
were based on unconventional melodies novel to popular music. The Return of the Durutti Column was
Reilly’s first effort, where Martin Hannett’s sparse production rendered the
record instrumentals hazy and ethereal. “Sketch for Summer” starts off with the
sound of chirping birds reminiscent of a warm summer afternoon, while Reilly’s
guitar adds to the joyous feel of the piece. “Katherine” is the longest track
in the record and contains a fine blues segment, whereas “Conduct” evolves from a
calm and peaceful start toward a more turbulent ending. “Jazz” is
self-explanatory, embracing elements of jazz music and preceding by a decade
the emergence of post-rock. “Sketch for Winter” is somewhat darker than its
summer counterpart, and boasts Reilly’s guitar mournfully proceeding
unaccompanied. I leave you with “Collette”, one of my favorites from The Return of the Durutti Column:
No comments:
Post a Comment