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.

Without Mercy [Factory Once, 1998]

Without Mercy [Factory Once, 1998]

CD: UK 14.09.98 (Factory Once FACDO 84 / London 556 039-2)

Tracklisting

Without Mercy I
Without Mercy II

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

Goodbye
The Room
Little Mercy
Silence
E.E.
Hello

From FBN 51

All That Love And Maths Can Do *

From Hommage a Duras compilation on Interior Music

The Sea Wall

Credits

All tracks written by Vini Reilly. Produced by Anthony Wilson and Michael Johnson.

Vini Reilly: Guitar, Bass Guitar, Piano and DMX. Bruce Mitchell: Percussion, Congas and DMX. Richard Henry: Trombone. Maunagh Flaming: Cor-Anglais and Oboe. Blaine Reininger: Violin and Viola. Mervyn Fletcher: Saxophone. Caroline Lavelle: Cello. Tim Kellett: Trumpet.

All songs written by Vini Reilly. Produced by Anthony Wilson and Michael Johnson. Recorded at Strawberry Studios, Stockport. Engineered by Michael Johnson, assisted by Tim Dewey and Nigel Beverley. Mixed at Britannia Row, London. Published by the Movement of the 24th January.

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say. Goodbye, The Room, A Little Mercy, Silence, E.E and Hello(w). All tracks written by Vini Reilly. Vini Reilly: DMX drum machine, DX7 Synth and Guitars. Mervyn Fletcher: Saxophone. RIchard Henry: Trombone. Tim Kellett: Trumpet. Bruce Mitchell: Percussion A Factory Communcatons Record 1984.

Related Works

All That Love and Maths Can Do, written and produced by Vini Reilly. Vini Reilly: Guitar. John Metcalfe: Viola, A Factory Communications Record 1984. Sea Wall, written and produced by Vini Rally. Vini Reilly: Guitar. Blaine Reininger: Violin. A

Factory Communications Record 1984.

Liner notes

If in doubt, repeat yourself

It was the fascist architecture that proved to be the final straw. My temper had been rising throughout the evening, a sell out gig, two thousand fanatical Portuguese Vini fans at some Lisbon College theatre, obviously built in the good old days of the Portuguese Generals.

What had got me going was the fact that Vini and Bruce were doodling along on stage the same way they had been doing for at least two and a half years. Same bloody stuff; like John Cooper Clarke doing a college gig in 1990. If in doubt, repeat yourself. It was too bloody easy.

And when the entire audience came to its feet on Bruce's 'drum solo' in 'Jacqueline', well, I mean, a fucking drum solo. When you're pissed off and everyone else is loving it, you get really pissed off. Shakespeare used to do that with filthy jokes just before a coming tragic death scene to wind up the part of the audience that wasn't pissing itself with laughter. The applause for the drum solo certainly wound me up.

It was the same with recording. Vini's third album, 'Another Setting', while strangely providing some of the DC standards that Vin would be playing a decade later, merely trod the same ground as 'LC' and took nothing forward. It was time for a change.

A few months earlier we'd been approached by three classical musicians, kids from the Royal Northern College of Music and Manchester University. A trumpeter, a saxophonist and a ...... "Has Factory got any work for us?" - "Who knows, maybe ......"

Factory had also struck up a relationship with the wonderful Pete Hadfield acting for statuesque cello player, Caroline Lavelle. (Where's the bloody tape, Pete?) An idea formed; a group of musicians for Vini to create for. Add to the mix Blaine Reininger from the Belgian connection - always on hand with his Michel Duval impersonations and electrifying violin work. The first meeting was at Alan and Annie's farm in Cheshire. "Actually we get more people at the farm than at the Hacienda", said Mr Erasmus for the Channel Four documentary while riding round a nearby field on the back of Hooky's trial bike.

And the final ingredient turned up on the first day at Strawberry when the brass section brought along their 'arranger', the diminutive but 'taking no shit' Mr Metcalfe whose viola playing became such a part of the next cycle of Durutti work.

Since this was pop it had to be 'boy meets girl, boy loses girl' so we took Keats's 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' as the narrative - boy meets girl, boy loses girl and no birds sing.

Central to the whole project was trying to get Vini to spend more than three days recording an album, to try and slow down the process. It took five days which has to be counted as an abject failure.

Plus getting to hear Vini and Blaine do an ultra heavy 'Sweet Jane' a couple of times at soundchecks was worth the admission.

Worth the admission to the reissue is the inclusion of the tracks from the 'Say What You Mean...' EP, released as a 12" vinyl single. The session for this collection took place at Revolution in Cheadle a few months after the 'Mercy' sessions and already show the slimming down process and the core musicians of the mid 80's Durutti Column coming of age. Basically it was the Manc kids. What's new.

Time Was Gigantic / Reissued Experiments

Time Was Gigantic / Reissued Experiments

CD: UK 08.98 (Factory Too FACDR 2.41)

Tracklisting

Disc one - Time Was Gigantic... When We Were Kids

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

Disc two - Reissued Experiments

Amigos Em Portugal
Menina Ao Pe Duma Piscina
Lisboa
Sara E Tristana
Estoril A Noite
Favourite Descending Intervals
To End With
All That Love And Maths Can Do
The Sea Wall
Our Lady Of The Angels
White Rabbit
Catos Con Guantes *
The Together Mix
Fridays (Up Person Mix)
Kiss Of Def **

* Actually "When the World (Newson Mix)"
** The proposed Rough Trade 7" track.

- -

Limited edition double CDR promo, 25 copies only, featuring "Time Was Gigantic...When We Were Kids" together with "Reissued Experiments" (titled "Experiments by Vini" on the label), a selection of some of the rare and previously unreleased material issued as extra tracks on the second phase of Durutti Column reissues (Factory Once). The "FACDR 2.41" number does not appear on disc 1, only on disc 2. Instead, disc 1 has the London/Factory Too '558 330-2' "Time Was Gigantic..." designation. Both discs have a "Town House Post Production" over-title. All copies signed, hand numbered and assembled by Vini himself, w/"Vini Reilly" plectrum. (Plectrum is either brown "tortoise shell" or white; both versions with gold foil-stamped lettering.) Thanks to Andrea Bianco for imagery.