Cuttings

SAY WHAT? DURUTTI COLUMN London Electric Screen Few words are spoken: "say what you mean, mean what you say". Words sung are almost whispered—apologies and pleas. There's a trumpeter on loan from Simply Red, viola for that classic chamber-muzak feeling, and Bruce Mitchell, who keeps time in comic, slicked-back-hair 'cool' manner, Vini Reilly's music has always take stock of 'the passing of time' — tonight, the past plugs up '85's potholes; a few ancient guitar phrases recur, whilst the sparse drum and guitar opening pieces exorcise the first four DC LPs. Reilly's electro-piano licks are a treat: circular riffs and chords dripping with that Lee Perry-patented 'underwater' effect. Mr DC's six-stringing also defies hyperbole—the very definition of 'pure'. Words like: pastoral, 'Englishness', melancholy, pretty, trance-inducing, can still be chucked around whilst assessing DC85. Sadly, 'space', 'soli...

. . . (honk) . . . (squawk) . . . "OK, you try and get a percussion solo out of one of these things then!!" OUTA THEIR GOURDS A CERTAIN RATIO Glasgow Rooftops IT IS a rare thing to soak up the atmosphere before a gig and be driven to despair by it thinking pessimistically that if they play 40-minute percussion solos that I will die of boredom and then being overwhelmed by a really excellent set. This was mostly—no. totally - due to the fact that A Certain Ratio have almost forsaken that awful Latin thing and returned to hard, driving (thank) funk. Their first number 'Sounds Like Something' was, well... downright foot-tapping despite their typically dour-faced Factory delivery. This is a Serious Business for them getting rid of the well-known 'Shack Up' early in the set they go on (and on) to illustrate in the most extreme way their homebred brand of Muso Ability, A Certain Ratio never let a smile break over their faces (although I saw a couple of twitche...

TELL ME, SAYS JAMES SHELLEY TO THIS 'DELICATE, TENACIOUS' MANCHESTER GROUP, TELL ME YOUR LIFE TIMES Something we should all know. Life. These days in life's dull daze, the finest freedom is to live life knowing it is not necessary to be liked. And hidden behind the delicate charge, fleeting touches and tenacious, vague lure that Manchester's Life are perfecting, lies a quiet strangeness, a new discovery of ways with beauty and a singular surety. Much like James, Ludus, Berntholer, Sudden Sway, Life do not care to be liked. But they will be loved. A secret of Life. Facts of Life: Graham Ellis - guitar, music, adept, 24, straightforward, gentle, Gemini, Chess and Robert Fripp. Rita Griffiths - voice, singing, perfect, 24, prim giggles, stuffy niggles, Gemini, studying and "I'm not telling you".  Andy Robinson - machines, words, wilfully inept, 24, sincere, smug, Gemini, pinball and Can. Fresh from the Albert Hall Miners Benefit (their London de...

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION BERNARD SUMNER has been speaking to The Maker about the new Electronic album, his use of Prozac to cure a supposed case of ”writer's block”, the future of New Order and ”Touching From A Distance” - the new book by the late Ian Curtis’ wife, Deborah. Bernard contacted The Maker from the studio in Manchester where he’s recording the new Electronic album with Johnny Marr and former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos. Sumner and Marr have been recording for the last 15 months and have 14 tracks knocked into shape. Twelve of them will be on the next Electronic album which, Bernard says will be out either just before or just after Christmas. There will be a single in September, possibly called Forbidden City”. Sumner was quick to scotch stories that he had taken the wonder drug Prozac to overcome a severe case of writer’s block. "The first I heard about it was when l read about it in the press and it’s simply not true he told The Maker. It appears that ...

Joy Division producer dies MARTIN HANNETT (right), legendary producer of Joy Division. Happy Mondays and Buzzcocks, died suddenly at his Manchester home last week, following hospital treatment for a chest infection. Hannett was a founder partner in Manchester's Factory Communications and. in his work on Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures' and ‘Closer' LPs, became one of the world's most influential producers. "In 1979 and 1980 the most important producer in the world was Martin Hannett" said Anthony Wilson, chairman of Factory, “What he did changed the face ot international pop music." Hannett's involvement in the Manchester music scene dated back to the early '70s, when he promoted music events in the city. He picked up on the embryonic punk scene and was founder ot Rabid Records and manager of punk poet John Cooper Clarke. Apart from his work with Joy Division, Hannett also produced The Buzzcocks, Durutti Column, Magazine and U2....

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/may/09/peter-hook-ian-curtis MUSIC In memory of Ian’s pleasures and pain Thirty years after the death of Ian Curtis, Peter Hook brings his Joy Division pal to life In the newly converted rehearsal studio behind his Alderley Edge home, Peter Hook is sifting through his personal collection of Joy Division memorabilia, including his first ever bass, bought the day after he saw the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, his ticket for said gig, and the itinerary for the first Joy Division US tour. The latter never happened, because on the eve of the dates, singer Ian Curtis killed himself. Hook, the hand’s bassist, is musing on his decision to commemorate Curtis’s life by playing Joy Division’s debut, Unknown Pleasures , live, on the 30th anniversary of his death, at Hook’s new club, Factory. “There’s a nervousness because of what you’re dealing with... a nervousness about whether you’re doing the right thing.” Part of the...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/may/10/1 A trocity Exhibition. Dead Souls. Love Will Tear Us Apart. Do any of these songs sound even vaguely summery? Yet Joy Division, the band that produced such Frappuccino-unfriendly listening, are back in the public eye just as the UK gets its first serious sunshine of the year and teenagers across the land find it too hot to mope in their bedrooms. A documentary about the band is out, and Simon Armitage - a poet as likely to strum a tennis racquet in front of a mirror as he is to pen an ode to the Prison Service - has been on Radio 4 this week talking about the greatness of lead singer Ian Curtis. How very unseasonal. On the other hand, here is an opportunity to rescue Joy Division from the lazy tag of wintry miserabilism; they were more visceral than that. Listen to the classic song Transmission: its defining element is Peter Hook's bass. Isolation and She's Lost Control sound like Kraftwerk on a jolly in Salford. No wond...

MANCS UNITED • EX- NME stalwart, media-mouth and ‘business molester’ PAUL MORLEY has an opinion about most things - including NEW ORDER whose soap-like historical documentary, neworderstory , broadcast this weekend, he scripted. DELE FADELE shares a beer and a pop music theory with him. THE SUAVE, debonair Paul Morley is putting across his public face - as opposed to private thoughts - over French beers in Soho. By turns animated and pensive, he’s debunking myths about his legendary self-absorption and talking sense a mile a minute about the New Order South Bank Show documentary, neworderstory (Sunday, ITV, times vary), he’s just written and produced with able help from director Kevin Hewitt (whose other credits include filming The Clash). Legend has it (unfairly) that former NME journalist Paul Morley lost the paper 100,000 readers in the early ’80s because of his self-obsessed obtuse writing; and that he’s had adventures in the grinning rictus of the music business as a ...

ITS BATH-TIME WITH VINI DURUTTI COLUMN Without Mercy (factory) FINALLY, a bit of music for a cleaner Britain, a record to bathe by. When the water in the tub is still, as the mirror gently sweats, Durutti Column will guide you through a patient lather towards relaxation. Refreshingly, there are no vocals; no squeaks except those you make as you slide across the porcelain to reach the shampoo. And as the day’s grime releases its anxious grip, the affectionate piano, the sweet oboe, and the melancholic guitar invade seized temples and relieve its conquerors with a hint of something classical. The music accompanies and compliments the self-indulgence without stopping. This is one great big song. The melody is stated first by the piano, played by Vini Reilly, who also happens to be the composer, guitarist, DMXist and arranger. The oboe joins in, followed by guitar and then strings untii the tune eventually evolves into variations on itself. But it does so without a cl...

QUANDO QUANGO Brixton Fridge "FANCY SEEING Quando Quango tonight?" Who or what is Quatro Gringo? "They're from Manchester. They're on Factory." (Oh God) Really? But of course, I go. Relief: they're not a 'Factory' band if you know what I mean. Aswad meets Antena? Probably not, but it's difficult to tell when the PA's full of golden syrup. Dutch girl Connie Rietveld's drum machine won't work, Mike Pickering's sax sounds like a wet fart, the bass is inaudible, the hack sitting beside me decides to leg it. Crambo Crossbow would appear to be a dance band (a demo tape and collection of quick-steppers with vivid imaginations confirms this) but tonight they're not given much of a chance. Crap concert, lotsa potential, nice shoulders. Not necessarily in that order. DAVID ELLIOTT

BENELUX INTERIORS VARIOUS ARTISTS Factory Benelux Greatest Hits  (Factory Benelux) I'M TRYING not to condemn this package out of hand, but it’s hard to be happy with it. It’s intended as a bargain bucket for the year’s six Benelux singles and seems an honest gift, a reasonable set, a lively parcel. But as an album it lacks either intrigue and diversity (it takes no chances) or a solid, fluent consistency; neither full of theme or following fun: the worst of both worlds. We can expect (DEMAND!) more from all of these (Quando Quango, 52nd Street, ACR, Cabaret Voltaire, The Wake and Stockholm Monsters). The hottest ‘hit' here is 52nd Street with the sleek, fleet class of ‘Cool As Ice’. With a crystal-sharp grace and crisp precision, ‘Cool As Ice’ shows Quando, ACR and Voltaire the door in no uncertain terms. It shifts and shimmers, glides off with the prize, twice as nice as the others. Against such breezy ease and swiftness, Quando’s ’Love Tempo’ is a mild, mundane, unforg...

FLICKERING SHADOWS  (Ikon FCL, 60 minutes, £14 — mail order from Ikon FCL, 86 Palatine Rd, W. Didsbury, Manchester M20 9JW) CERTAINLY no danger of Ikon being accused of selling out to commercial interests with this release. It's a collection of nine short films originally shot on Super 8 by one Ivan Unwin, a man enjoying the support of the Arts Council in his recondite artistic endeavours. As with Ikon's weighty William Burroughs double pack, "Flickering Shadows" is resolutely self-referential, defying easy access and daring you to be dismissive. There are at least some very brief clues supplied to what's going on in Unwin's brain on the insert — "Bunker Protection For Mr Capital MP" is "A Government test film, recording the consequences of eating dehydrated food with festive over indulgence". There's this bloke, see, who stuffs himself with Ryvita plastered with tomato ketchup while growing an artificial turkey to hideous proport...

FLAG OF CONVENIENCE / HAPPY MONDAYS / IGNITION Manchester A SWIFT glance around confirmed it. This wasn't the place to be. It seemed as if Bruce Springsteen was playing in the pub down the road. It was if there never existed a band called the Buzzcocks. And then... Suddenly a major performance was born out of the disaster. Ignition (the brightest sparks on the Mancunian circuit) fell foul of a nasty virus. Only their lead singer, a cocky little chap of no more than 17, bounded furiously onto the deadening stage and hurled himself into an impromptu Billy Bragg set. His enthusiasm was ably supported by great songs, a great voice and a sackful of the purest talent I've seen for many a year. Guts and confidence grabbed our attention. Amazingly well-crafted melodies made me yearn to see the band in full. The little lad chugged away, using his naivety as a defence, using his youthful vibrancy as an attack and forcefully throwing his all into a set which boasted a social co...

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 ...

A CERTAIN RATIO LIVERPOOL PLAYHOUSE THESE DAYS, it's Donald Johnson that wears the shorts in the ACR house. Jeremy Kerr, a skeleton with eyes like death who should immediately consider eating at least three Shredded Wheat, looks like the music once sounded. Thin, white and worried. Tonight its Johnson’s percussive violence - there is no other word for it - on both drums, and slap-happy bass that holds sway. The music is loud and simply irresistible. The audience remains seated. A Certain Ratio play to 12 million, radio listeners. They are not overly concerned about it.  There are maybe five songs called things like 'Inside'. These are from a new album called ‘Force’. Right now, that title suits them well. And then Kerr wrests the mantle from the magnificently flailing Donald Johnson for a moment or two. He sings but it doesn’t matter. The rhythm is brutally precise. Tapes and massively distorted guitar spray across it. They do nothing to diminish its powe...

A CERTAIN RATIO Sheffield Leadmill IRONIC TO see a band like ACR playing in a town like Sheffield where so many hammer and tongs, fumace-fired funkateers have grown up under their influence, mentioning no names, of course. The ground is thick with students and hoppity-boppitty peak capped and fatigue'd rationarios blowing whistles with a comic ferocity. A Certain Ratio are certainly not what they used to be. The magnificence of their red level bass lines, percussive enormity and minimal frills have been sanded down to a trim, well-oiled light engine. Out with the funk dynamo and in with the software. All the dirt, rough edges and abrasive surfaces have, unfortunately, disappeared. Even though the percussive bones still grind and snap, guitars still slice and horns punch pinholes in the rhythmic rationale, ACR wear an overall blanket sheen that smacks violently of average funk all-dayer floor-fillers. Perhaps within the context of the all-dayer circuit they'd achieve a degr...

QUANGO QUANGO Pigs & Battleships ( Factory ) HAPPILY, QUANGO have slipped thataway . Flinging off the (s)light, merry dabbling and friendly jingles of 'Love Tempo' and ‘Atom Rock', 'Pigs' sees QQ skipping past the pigeonholes, seizing you by the heels and dipping into a colourful lucky-bag of rhythms (salsa, funk, latin, calypso, you-name-it) with a deliciously contagious ingenuity and ease. 'Rebel' aside, 'Pigs’ is more Slits and less Modem Romance than before, with Gonnie Rietveld’s artfully Ari-ish phrasing and footing taking over from Mike Pickering’s dour chants and flat enthusiasm. From the frisky tricks and busy mischief of the opening 'Genius' and Go Exciting’ through the Brazilian 'Danger Man’ theme on ‘ST, the lovers rock-bubblegum of ‘This Feeling’ (Syreeta-sweet until some  pointlessly token toasting) and the closing cover of War's 'Low Rider', Quando are consistently  surprising and persuasive. Full of s...

HAPPY MONDAYS  THE WEEDS Manchester Corbieres "Hello," they said, "we're The Weeds from Los Angeles." But they're not, of course. They're from round here. The trio of Andrew (guitar and voice), Simon (drums) and Mikey (dreadlocks and bass) are just what you'd expect to find growing at the bottom of the garden, where the wild things are. Wild, though, in the domesticated sense, for they're not the sort to roll on the floor. They play, fiendishly simply, a form of pretty, modestly unmodelled music. Their songs are branching out but not over-running the undergrowth of basic, wonderful chord changes. They seem impermanent but they take root remarkably easily. Equally unfashionable and just as capable of sprouting freely through the cracks in anybody's crazy paving, any day of the week, are the disquieteningly-named Happy Mondays (can Mondays ever  be so?). With perspiring, resounding frustration they thunder the sound of northern council...

The Life Of Reilly THE DURUTTI COLUMN  Riverside Studios THE SPARSE formality of Hammersmith Riverside Studios was perfectly in tune with the return of Vinnie Reilly. the last in the season of Factory Goes To Hammersmith. And if the audience was more balding and bearded than bleak and industrial, well, that was par for the course as well. Vinnie Reilly may look like the eternal child prodigy, but this is very adult entertainment. Flanked by banners making a cryptic statement about the relationship between art and technology, and dwarfed by a grand piano, the boy wonder borrowed a phrase from Peel as introduction. "It starts quietly," he explained, "but it gets louder later on." And so it did — but always the attention was lured back to Reilly's fluid guitar — the sound that is Durutti Column, as exemplified by their second piece, 'Sketch For Summer'. Surely one of the most evocative pieces of music ever released, wherever you heard it first,...

THE DURUTTI COLUMN  London Riverside Studios SIXTY FOOT up in the Riverside gantry, amongst the clutter of microphones, lights, and soundmen, we witness the return of The Durutti Column. A grand piano booming converts into a delicate trickle of keys, and introduces Vini Reilly and his right hand man, percussionist Bruce Mitchell: if you’re coming back, you might as well come back in style. The truth is that The Durutti Column have never really been away  they’ve just been ignored slightly - and the fact that on each of these two nightly stints hundreds have been turned away inspires tremendous confidence in that tenuous motion that people actually don’t always believe what-they read (or don’t read) in the music press. They performed short, crisp numbers using combinations of grand piano, guitar, keyboards, and snareless drum. With the arrival of violinist, cellist, oboeist, and brass section, familiar tracks (like the excellent ‘Jacqueline' from ‘L.C.' album) ende...