If you are a close follower of modern music, the name of Vini Reilly’s longstanding project The Durutti Column should be lingering there somewhere as something special, even if it is only for one of the greatest (instrumental) songs in modern music – “Sketch For Summer,” either as a single, or as the opener for The Durutti Column debut album The Return of The Durutti Column, released all the way back in 1980.
And while, for some reason or other, Reilly’s project has remained mostly as a (deserved) cult favourite, luckily it is still around. Renascent, the latest effort and first in over a decade, is possibly one of the most accomplished in his four and a half decades or so of music making.
There could be a number of reasons why Reilly and The Durutti Column never got the wider acceptance they deserved. It could be that fans of his opening salvo expected that they would stick solely to that intricate Reilly guitar sound that brought the early guitar rock of The Shadows and the like to both the modern times and the future. Reilly, however, had more cards in his deck, varying his sound, bringing in both varying musical elements into the sound – from electronics to full acoustic orchestras.
At the same time, some critics and listeners had their quibbles about Reilly’s obviously limited vocal capabilities. Yet he was often able to cover that problem by bringing quest vocalists, using his personal vocals sparingly or using their fragility as a statement when he saw it fit, as he did on Someone Else’s Party (2003) – one of his most personal albums.
Here, on aptly titled Renascent, Reilly is in a full collaborative mode, practically covering the complete musical ground he did in the previous decades. It includes his signature guitar sound on opener “Echoes in the Memory” and elsewhere on the album; his delicate piano playing on “Sargasso Sea” and elsewhere; excellent orchestrated arrangements on “For Friends Everywhere”; subdued electronics throughout; and, above all, brilliant songwriting – solo or often in collaboration here with Keir Stewart.
As was always the case, Reilly has an excellent knack to choosing the right guest vocalists to showcase his musical ideas, here utilising the talents of Caoilfhionn Rose and Lucas Elliot. As far as his own vocals are concerned, on Renascent he is able to put forward their best side, with “Scammer” being the best example.
It is yet another brilliant presentation of a master who never got the full recognition he always deserved.
