Durutti Column "Circuses and Bread" Review

WHINE AND CHEESE

DURUTTI COLUMN

Circuses And Bread (Factory Benelux)

MORE MODERN chamber music for people who wear their raincoats while eating breakfast at midday, ‘Circuses And Bread' drifts from the speakers with a curiously refined sadness. The Albert Camus Appreciation Society will wrongly consider it to be an apt soundtrack for their group readings of The Outsider, but the Durutti Column's melancholia most reflects the hopeless romanticism of the tarot card-reading existentialist.

Often wet-lipped and moist-eyed, the Durutti Column are always polite enough to avoid seeking refuge in primal scream therapy or “tears for fears/ sobbing for angst" treatment But there is also an edge to their sound, and to Vini Reilly's songs, which means that 'Circuses And Bread' exudes mournful dignity rather than cloying sentiment.

The closest the Durutti Column get to something as flippant as "fun" is their naming of two tracks as ‘Dance I' and 'Dance ll' - these dittys are, of course, only remotely danceable if you're inclined to shake your booty when wearing a kaftan and sandles while pretending to be Nelson the Seagull flying towards celestial heights. ‘Tomorrow’ is the most interesting song, probably because it allows you to imagine what Everything But The Girl would sound like if Genesis P Orridge linked up with Ben Watt as Tracey Thom’s replacement. Vini Reilly bears a vague vocal resemblance to the Porridge-like reincarnation of Brian Jones but his “All I wanted was your time, all you ever gave me was tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes.." gloom is gently affecting when set against the song's morbid sound.

Potentially damaging to the mental stability of tearful O and A-Level students who listen to this sort of stuff during their stress-filled study breaks, ‘Circuses And Bread' glides past, soon to be forgotten in a slot somewhere between Virginia Astley and The Cocteau Twins.

Donald McRae