I got home from our holiday in southern Spain to find my copy of the new Durutti Column album Renascent waiting for me- I'd streamed it a couple of times while away and had been both impressed and moved by it and that has been repeated with several plays of the vinyl version. The last Durutti Column album before Renascent was A Paean To Wilson back in 2010, a tribute to Tony Wilson, Vini's friend, sometime manager and label boss. More than that, Tony was a believer in Vini, a true advocate for the music of The Durutti Column. A Paean To Wilson was the 26th Durutti Column album and due to a series of strokes Vini suffered in 2010 and the long period since then where it was reported that Vini was unable to play guitar (certainly to a standard he was happy with) it looked like that was it, there would be no more Durutti Column. The news a couple of months ago of a new Durutti Column album and two songs that preceded it- Liars and Scammer- was therefore very well received. The fact that there would be a new Durutti Column at all was close to miraculous- that it should be so good...
While I was on holiday we dropped into the English language bookshop in Nerja where at the front of the shop by the till I found a Paul Preston book about the Spanish Civil War, a book called Comrades! that tells the story of the war through the stories of nine different people, from the fascist leader Franco to Dolores Ibarruri, the communist orator known as La Pasionaria (Paul Preston is the leading authority on the war and his general reader, The Spanish Civil War, is as good an introduction to and history of the war as you'll find). Comrades! includes a quote by Buenaventura Durruti, the anarchist- syndicalist leader of the anarchist militia the Durruti Column and the man whose name (mispelt) gave Tony Wilson the name for Vini's band. I've seen the quote before but as I flicked through the book, with Renascent playing, it jumped out at me...
'It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain... and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts'
James Nice, the man who project managed Renascent and who wrote A Life Of Reilly, a biography of Vini published in 2024, begins his book with the quote as well- 'we carry a new world in here, in our hearts'. Very Factory. Very Wilson. The Hacienda does not exist. The Hacienda must be built.
These things coming together as they did- the new album, Vini back in the press, the book (found and bought in Spain), the Durruti quote... it all seemed, well, very well timed. Wilson might have called it praxis* or something similar.
Renascent has a certain continuity with the Factory days. It has a Fac number, Fac 2.51 (as awarded by Wilson's son Oliver, steward of Factory Too) and the artwork is by 8vo who did much of the Durutti Column artwork back in the 80s. The music is a team effort, not just Vini but also Bruce Mitchell, Kier Stewart and Caoilfhionn Rose (a singer and pianist who has sung with Vini before).
The album is a thing of beauty, poignant and romantic, cut through with melancholy but also a success in the face of adversity. It was recorded sporadically, assembled over several years, from various sessions, gathering pace since 2021. At one point during Covid, producer/ Durutti Column member Kier Stewart and Vini's friend, manager and long term drummer Bruce Mitchell recorded it while sitting in a car, recording Vini through the window, due to lockdown restrictions.
Between them, they've created a ten song album that stands alongside previous Durutti albums. It drifts in slowly and gently with Echoes In The Memory, fragments of guitar chords and strumming shimmering in the light, over a wash of synths. The interplay of instruments sounds like memories flashing back and forth, a life flashing before our eyes, before it snaps into focus and finishes on one strummed chord.
Your Shadow In The Morning has Spanish sounding guitar notes, a familiar DC sound, some lovely echo and chorus FX, those melancholy notes Vini's been locating since the late 70s. Repeated listens bring them together as a song and a mood. Time Present And Time Past (and don't the song titles suggest so much) is a lilting guitar- led piece, notes and runs down the neck of the instrument countered by a twinkling acoustic topline, some bursts of electric guitar and a musical box melody dancing its way onward. Agonistes brings the first sign of vocals, some wordless backing vox by Caoilfhionn Rose adorning Vini's guitar and Bruce's drums. Side one finishes with Liars, the first time Vini's voice is heard, 'I love you, I'm sorry', he repeats as sighs, drums, bass and guitars pad away.
Side two opens with Vapour In A Matchbox, a two minute instrumental piece, before one of the standouts, Your Shadow At Evening- Bruce on the front foot with the drums, some tension and groove, a line of feedback, swirling guitars and synths, some frustration and anger expressed alongside the melancholy and tenderness found elsewhere.
Sargasso Sea is sung and played by Caoilfhionn Rose. At point she sings, 'and I don't regret a single cigarette', a line that jumps out, almost a Reilly mission statement. It's followed by Scammer, Vini on vocals again over a typically Durutti Column melody, guitars and synths combining, piano notes and guitar notes trading places.
On the vinyl edition, the final song is For Friends Everywhere, a new orchestral arrangement of For Belgian Friends, one of Vini's most loved songs, originally released way back on the Factory Quartet EP. Woodwind, piano and strings, an arthouse cinema score version with a side order of Penguin Cafe Orchestra. The digital version of renascent includes an extra song (also available on flexi disc with some of the vinyl editions), All They See Is Fire, Vini's guitar with vocals from Lucas Elliot, another song that captures that Durutti Column feel, the longing and mystery that have been at the core of the Durutti Column for a long, long time now. It's a looking back for sure, a capturing of Vini's playing and his songs but it's looking forward too- or at least very happy to be in the present.
Who knows if they're will be any more new Durutti Column music. Maybe there will, maybe there won't- Renascent in itself is enough and as Buenventura Durruti said back in 1936, 'we carry a new world here, in our hearts'.
* Wilson was somewhat obsessed with praxis- the idea that you do things and then work out what they mean and why you did it afterwards. Sometimes the act of blogging seems to be very much an exercise in praxis.
