Time Was GIGANTIC... When we were kids

Time Was GIGANTIC... When we were kids

CD: UK 12.10.98 (Factory Too FACD 2.31)

Tracklisting

Organ Donor
Pigeon
I B Yours
Twenty Trees
Abuse
Drinking Song
Sing To Me
My Last Kiss
For Rachel
Highfield Choir
Epilogue

Credits

Produced by Keir Stewart
Design by 8vo

Notes

A Factory Too promotional cassette issue is also said to exist. FACD 2.21 was originally allocated to this release (according to the Factory Too website in February 1997).

Domo Arigato [Factory Once, 1998]

Domo Arigato [Factory Once, 1998]

CD: UK 05.10.98 (Factory Once Facdo 144 / London 556 038-2)

Tracklisting

Sketch For Summer
Sketch For Dawn
Mercy Theme
Little Mercy
Jacqueline
Dream Of A Child
Mercy Dance
The Room
E.E.
Blind Elevator Girl
Tomorrow
For Belgian Friends
Missing Boy
Self Portrait
Audience Noise

Related Works

Our Lady Of The Angels
White Rabbit
When The World (Newson Mix)

Credits

All tracks written by Vini Reilly. Produced by Durutti Column and Anthony Wilson.

Vini Reilly: Vocals, Guitar, Piano and DX7
Bruce Mitchell: Percussion, Xylophone and DMX
Tim Kellett: Trumpet
John Metcalfe: Viola

Recorded by G.Y.N.E. Mobile Recording at Gotanda Kanihoken Hall, Tokyo; 25th April 1985; Remixed at G.Y.N.E. Mobile Recording and Nippon Columbia Studio No. 4; PCM Editing Engineer: Hideki Kukizaki; Engineers: Anthony Wilson and Norio Okada; Concert Organisation: UPU and Moon Office

Related Works

Our Lady of The Angels, written by Vini Reilly. Recorded by Stuart James at Amigos Studio, North Hollywood and mixed by Stephen Street at Strawberry Studios, Stockport, England. A Factory Communications Record 1987. [From Fac 184]

White Rabbit, originally written by Grace Slick. Recorded and mixed by Stephen Street at Strawberry Studios, Stockport, England. A Factory Communications Record 1987. [From Fac 184]

When The World (Newson Mix), written by Vini Reilly. Recorded and mixed by Stephen Street at Strawberry Studios, Stockport, England. A Factory Communications Record 1987. [From Facd 194]

With thanks to Tony, Bruce.Graphic Magicians: 8vo, London

Liner notes by Anthony H. Wilson

Home from home in a Tokyo car park

Why was it so hard to get served in this bloody Japanese restaurant somewhere in a far flung suburb of Tokyo.

We'd been waiting twenty minutes since ordering. Finally the manager came over, very apologetic as only the Japanese can be; our two waitresses were giggling and in shock in the kitchen because 'Vini Reilly' was actually in their restaurant and were so excited they were unable to come out and serve us.

Yeah. Vini isn't exactly an international celebrity, but when he's loved, he's very very loved.

It was a fun / strange tour, that trip to Tokyo. Bruce Mitchell explaining to me how to deal with our Japanese partners, just keep explaining your point, again and again and finally someone will say "Hai" and you're on your way.

I was trying to get two 35mm cameras instead of 6 video cameras to film the Durutti Column gig and it only took me two and a half hours of repeating this to get a "Hai". I preferred waiting for the food.

The DC entourage that had built up for the 'Without Mercy' album had slimmed down to a wonderful core of Vini, Bruce, John Metcalfe on viola and Tim Kellett on trumpet. They'd done three definitive gigs at the Electric Cinema on London's Portobello Road and I was praying that we could capture that once more in Japan, with tape and camera. We did.

Thank you. Or Domo as they say out there.

Mixing down was fun; we were on a flight out next morning so the wonderful Takao Homma at Nippon Columbia hired a mobile studio recording truck. We mixed from midnight till 6 a.m. And it was another of those warming technological experiences; brought the strangest of foods throughout the night in those lacquered lunch boxes that seem to dominate Japanese working life, while we worked with the most familiar of equipment -- the desk was emblazoned 'Amek, Salford, England' and the outboard was all 'AMS, Burnley, Lancashire'. Home from home in a Tokyo car park.

And by the way this is a CD; and has only ever been a CD; we reckoned it was the first CD only release in the UK when it came out the following year. And it was the note on which that whole trip had started; arriving late at night off the plane and taken by Takao to plug in the first CD player I'd ever seen and listen to ...... 'Power, Corruption and Lies' a test sample straight from the Denon pressing plant. Wow.

And then there was the trip to LA; getting Vini and Bruce a limo from the Hyatt to the Whiskey; 600 yards. We thought we'd go into a studio while were were there; I think it was Milo who sorted it.

There was this cool LA lady -- I'd met her at a New Order gig the previous summer and played Pac-woman with her and fancied her and failed miserably and Peter S. even asked me if, as I was doing so badly he could try instead and she was in a bunch of bands, and we got her to come and sing with Vini and her name is Debi Diamond and that's about it.

And 'Our Lady of the Angels' is Vini's tribute to that wonderful wonderful town. I didn't know my Franciscan history I'm afraid and the whole thing was only explained by reading Reyner Banham (thanks Mr Savage for yet another one), and discovering that the City of the Angels is in fact "El Ciuidad della Nostra Senora de Los Angeles de Porciuncula". LA for short. And the track is indeed a short cut to Mulholland Drive.

Another Setting [Factory Once, 1998]

Another Setting [Factory Once, 1998]

CD: UK 05.10.98 (Factory Once Facdo 74 / London 556 041-2)

Tracklisting

Prayer
Response
Bordeaux
For A Western
The Beggar
Francesca
Smile In The Crowd
You've Heard It Before
Dream Of A Child
Second Family
Spent Time

Related Works

Amigos em Portugal:

Amigos em Portugal
Menina ao pe duma Piscina
Lisboa
Sara e Tristana
Estoril a Noite

Dedications for Jacqueline:

Favourite Descending Intervals
To End With

Credits

All tracks written by Vini Reilly

Related Works

Amigos em Portugal: Amigos em Portugal, Menina ao pe duma Piscina, Lisboa, Sara e Tristana and Estoril a Noite, written by Vini Reilly. Recorded and mixed in the Valentim de Carvalho Studios by To Pinheiro da Silva and Jose Valverde. A Factory Communications Record 1983.

Dedications for Jacqueline: Favourite Descending Intervals and To End With, written by Vini Reilly. Recorded and mixed in the Valentim de Carvalho Studios by To Pinheiro da Silva and Jose Valverde. A Factory Communications Record 1983.

With thanks to Tony, Bruce.

Graphic Magicians: 8vo, London

Notes

The official credits are strangely scarce in this reisssue. Here are additional credits from Facd 74.

Recorded and mixed at Strawberry Studios, Stockport
Engineered by Chris Nagle
Published by the Movement of 24th January

Obey The Time [Factory Once, 1998]

Obey The Time [Factory Once, 1998]

CD: UK 10.98 (Factory Once FACDO 274 / London 556 040-2)

Tracklisting

Vino Della Casa Bianco
Hotel Of The Lake 1990
Fridays
Home
Art And Freight
Spanish Reggae
Neon
The Warmest Rain
Contra-indications
Vino Della Casa Rosso

Related Works

The Together Mix
Fridays (Up-Person Mix)
Kiss Of Def (Trade 2 Singles Club)

Credits

A Factory Communications Record 1998.
With thanks to Tony, Bruce, Graphic Magicians: 8vo, London
Graphic Magicians: 8vo, London

Obey the Time

All tracks written by Vini Reilly.

Drums on 'Art and Freight' by Bruce Mitchell.

Computed and Engineered by Paul Miller at Home, except 'Contra-indications' computed and engineered by Andy Robinson at Spirit Studios. Hypnosis and medication by Sydney Gottlieb. Food and relaxation by Dry.

The Together Mix

The Together Mix, written by Vini Reilly. Remixed by Together. A Factory Communications Record 1990.

Fridays, written by Vini Reilly. Recorded and mixed by Vini Reilly and Paul Miller. A Factory Communications Record 1990.

Trade 2 Singles Club

Kiss of Def, written by Vini Reilly. Remixed by Keir Stewart at Inch.

Liner notes

Absolutely in the middle of it

"I have but an hour of love, of worldly matters and direction to spend with thee: we must obey the time."

The titles of Vini's albums and even the tracks themselves come from tne oddest places. There's the easy way out: the female first name of the muse of the moment, from Katharine to Pol in G (sorry Pol, you were more than a moment), and all the rest.

Other times Vin would have something in mind and other times, I, as one third of his management would flirt around with my latest obsessions looking for a connection with Vini's pieces.

Part of this aesthetic derives from Italian directors in general and Pasolini in particular who loved having different actors dub the voices on his movies and almost intentionally doing the dubbing badly so there was a creative tension between the physical performance and the vocal performance; for the Durutti Column, there's usually some interesting stuff in the space between the title and the piece.

The title of this album came screaming off the TV screen in somebody's version of Othello' and captured exactly the feel of the work in progress. We were in the middle of the Aceeed explosion: if you lived in Manchester, you were absolutely in the middle of it. Vini, like the rest of us, has lost the ability to age or atrophy, and enjoyed the party.

He even explained why house made keyboards sound so fresh something to do with a chord being played with three or four notes into the sampler but then different chords being triggered by a single key stroke; creating mathematical harmonic relationships "which Schoenberg had searched for but never found".

In experimenting with certain beats and ideas, Vini was indeed obeying the time.

We're including as a bonus track here something that comes from the late 90's. But we submit it as a most recent example of Vini 'obeying' the time and as such connecting to the music of this period and taking us up to where the ripples of 88 still make interesting patterns on the shore.

The producer of his 1998 album, Kier, (another full-blown genius who also tried to get Vini to stop singing and met the same fate as everybody else) did this remix of My Last Kiss: sorta post-trance, sub-jungle, retro-ambient, or something. It's called 'Kiss of Def' which is partly taking the piss out of Barney's HIV lyric and partly just a cool title.

We were going to give it to Glenn and Jeff at Trade Two who were looking forward to putting it on their club label, but it got snared up with the lawyers on both sides.

And then, going back to 1990, there was Together, the 'Hardeore Uproar' cultish and soon-to-be massive dance duo who did the 'Together' remix; two fantastic kids, one with the ability to sing nasally out of the side of his mouth and the other, another young Kier, brightest eyes of any engineer you'd meet back in 1990. He died that Summer in Ibiza. Bicycle accident. Fucking tragic.

That Summer I was in Varenna, a small village on the banks of Lake Como, and Vini was short on titles for the pieces on this album, many of them emerging from mathematical / harmonic or technological inspiration rather than lovers he could name them after. So Vin let me take some of the titles from my experiences in Varenna. 'The Warmest Rain', indeed.