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What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
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1001realapes
1001realapes
2379 posts

What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
Nov 26, 2006, 21:29
Ive heard six

The Guitar And...

Dry

No Mercy

The Return Of...

Obey The Time

Sex & Death
a23
a23
1004 posts

Re: What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
Nov 26, 2006, 23:04
The ones I know and like are:

The return of...
LC
Without Mercy
Someone Else's Party
Keep Breathing
Gladwin
Gladwin
402 posts

Edited Nov 27, 2006, 10:14
Re: What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
Nov 27, 2006, 10:09
I'm a huge Durutti Column fan, and I can back up a23's recommendation of the early albums that you don't list (LC and Another Setting) both of which feature extra tracks if you get the Factory Too CDs.

Other albums that you don't have but might like depend on how much you need to hear Vini playing guitar - if you like Obey the Time, you should enjoy Fidelity and Circuses and Bread (this one also sounds a bit like Without Mercy, except it has vocals) or the 1989 album called Vini Reilly.

But if you like Sex and Death, and the more guitar-heavy sound, then you might consider Live at the Venue which is available on CD via Kooky.

[edit: hang on - I think this might have sold out!]

One more thing - get to see them live! Vini has never sounded better, and he's currently giving it some real molten-lava guitar welly as well as those delicate filigrees of impossible fingering for which he's better known.

A national treasure!
dave clarkson
2988 posts

Re: What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
Nov 27, 2006, 11:28
Lots to choose from (he's done about 24 albums) but in my opinion, the greatest ones in this order are:

1, LC (for 'Never Known', 'Portrait for Frazier', brilliant atmospheric stuff, Bruce Mitchell's drums sound great with the reverb overkill).
2, Return of... (for 'Sketch for Summer', 'in D', 'Colette' - fabulous geetaring and atmospheres, )
3, Another Setting (for 'For a Western', 'Spent Time' and 'Francesca'
4, Amigos Em Portugal (another great album recorded about the time of another setting).
5, Circuses and Bread (for 'Royal Infirmary', 'Black Horses', 'Tomorrow')
6, Time Was Gigantic When We Were Kids (sounds great with kids choir samples)

Other interesting and good ones are:

1, Red Shoes (compilation of italian releases)
2, Without Mercy (classical piece in two parts)
3, Sex and Death
4, Sporadic Recordings (volumes 1 and 2)
5, Vini Reilly (good use of choirs, church music and annie lennox samples)


..of the newer stuff, go for 'Keep Breathing'

..one's to avoid:

1, Live at the Venue (poor recording and band sound tired)
2, Guitar and other Machines (critics choice and popular with many people but ultimately unrewarding)

Enjoy the stuff!

8)
Adman
Adman
157 posts

Re: What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
Nov 27, 2006, 15:05
Their debut album is the one I keep "returning" to (ahem no pun intended). However, make sure you hear the original album as the Factory Too version of the CD is a major cockup with missing and wrongly titled tracks. Although the Factory Too version is tempting with all the bonuses (including the must hear Hannett Testcard flexi stuff) I would avoid this shoddy release.

I own the Japanese Factory "First Four Albums" CD set - which includes the first four albums (with the correct track listing for "Return Of"). The Japanese set has sound as least as good if not better than the so called Factory Too remasters. This excellent boxset appears from time to time on eBay.

Of the later Durutti releases I really like "Someone Else's Party" the dedication to his mother (who had recently passed away) is really emotional. On this album we have "Requiem to my Mother" which neatly echoes "Requiem to a Father" on the 1979 debut "Return Of". The brief snatch of Vini's Mother voice from an ansaphone message at the end of "Somebody Else's Party" gets me every time.
Jim Tones
Jim Tones
5142 posts

Re: What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
Nov 27, 2006, 15:10
That bloody avatar slays me every time!

;-D
dave clarkson
2988 posts

Re: What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
Nov 27, 2006, 16:26
Talkin' of avatars, Vini Reilly contributed 30 minutes of music to an installation called 'Human Avatars' by Andrea Zapp. The documentary DVD of this which features Durutti Column and yours truly (shameful plug) is available from here:

http://www.cornerhouse.org/books/info.aspx?ID=1871&page=0

Think about 3 have been sold so far, heh heh

8)
Severin
Severin
1770 posts

Re: What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
Nov 27, 2006, 18:46
dave clarkson wrote:

..one's to avoid:

2, Guitar and other Machines (critics choice and popular with many people but ultimately unrewarding)


Ha!..and,of course,the one DC I have..I found a promo cassette of it years ago,and as I had liked the (early) DC I had heard in college (Bread & Circuses was one of them,iirc) I thought I'd give it a go...I may have listened to it 2-3 times in the 15~ years I've had it...Not awful,just...eh
Stevo
Stevo
6664 posts

Re: What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
Nov 27, 2006, 19:58
I know there's a good 2cd best of I picked up last year but can't remember where I put or what it's called.

plus there was set Live in @81 that was downloadable from somewhere 6 months to a year back. Think I heard about it on here so may be in archives, not sure if it'd still be up as download though.

Is there anything recorded during VIni's tenure in the Nosebleeds? Strikes me that'd be interesting
Stevo
Np Sunburned Hand Of The Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VD4ApeNDaQ
keith a
9565 posts

Re: What Are The Best Durutti Column Albums ?
Nov 27, 2006, 21:44
The glorious Ain't Bin To No Music School, released summer '77.

Fab 45!!
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