THE WAKE - HERE COMES EVERYBODY (RSD ISSUE) / DURUTTI COLUMN - VINI REILLY (RSD ISSUE) - Vinyl reviews
The Wake - Here Comes Everybody / The Durutti Column - Vini Reilly - Factory Benelux - LP for RSD
Two Factory-related releases originally intended for Record Store Day, both recently reissued on CD and now available on remastered vinyl with additional tracks.
Here Comes Everybody is The Wake's creative peak. Originally issued in 1985 after a considerable delay and an utterly rotten pressing, this 2020 clear-vinyl stamp is remarkable in comparison and rightfully corrects the wrongs of (gulp) 35 years ago. Bolstered with an exclusive 7" pressing of near-hit Talk About The Past coupled with the still muddy single Of The Matter, this repress highlights an era that The Wake never quite equalled.
HCE is a synth-heavy and melancholic record that manages to shore up the gap between 'typical' Factory gloom and sprightly indie-pop. For a start, three of the songs exceed five minutes in length, almost unheard of outside any record-label other than Sarah (whom The Wake joined after this album) and perhaps 4AD. Slight digs at the band's supposedly isolated audience abounds during the album's glorious centrepiece Melancholy Man - "A long grey overcoat which trails along the ground.../... They shout my name and run behind my back...". It's also very Don McLean with references to "Vincent".
For me it's Side Two where the band's strengths come to the fore - there isn't a dud in sight. The keen would-be single World Of Her Own is softly sung with accompanying harmonica before the first of three epics kick in. Torn Calendar is trippy and reflective and contains one of the most eye-watering little riffs in the middle its heartfelt balladry, All I Asked You To Do is soaked in waves of dewy-eyed synths before the title-track employs some dubbed up euphoria and the album ends as abruptly as it started.
All of which makes Here Comes Everybody something of a unique album. Not quite drippy indie-pop, not quite commercial enough yet utterly absorbing and I'll fight you fot it.
Meanwhile over in Durutti Column land, another double vinyl reissue off the back of a recent expanded digital issue. Vini Reilly, entitled after the group's main protaganist and musician, is perhaps the most timeless of Durutti Column's sprawling catalogue. Loaded with samples, chock full of terrific riffs and another casualty of poor pressing quality back in 1989, Vini Reilly is a masterpiece. You might even know some of the music on here - Otis appeared on the 24-Hour Party People soundtrack, while many of the pieces have been used in documentaries and idents over the years.
Strangely, the album's most sorrowful piece Love No More kickstarts the album. It's so mournful and funereal, you can't help but think is this Factory perversely trying to bulldoze any hope of continued play in record-shops and on radio-stations with the album's least approachable vignette? Of course not - the whole record is as acommercial as you'd expect, regardless of the running order. What it isn't though is one-dimensional. I urge you to head to what I think should have been the album's opener, Finding The Sea. A widescreen nine-minute epic featuring a cheeky Annie Lennox sample, intricate guitar work from Reilly, drum patterns from long-term chum Bruce Mitchell and a tapestry of multi-instrumental work from operatic vocalist Liu Sola and stringsmith John Metcalfe, this powerful three-piece suite concludes with what sounds like a burial at sea.
There's some stunning guitar work on Otis, Homage to Catalonia and Requiem Again, sprightly drumming and brushwork on They Work Every Day and My Country and some resounding production from Stephen Street.
The second disc includes live recordings from WOMAD '88 (I was there, somewhat unexpectedly) and a handful of outtakes from the era, while a further bonus 7" captures the innocence of a tangled recording session with Reilly and brief future collaborator and antagonist Morrissey, initially available with early copies of the 1989 original (and badly-pressed) LP.
Two Factory-related releases originally intended for Record Store Day, both recently reissued on CD and now available on remastered vinyl with additional tracks.
Here Comes Everybody is The Wake's creative peak. Originally issued in 1985 after a considerable delay and an utterly rotten pressing, this 2020 clear-vinyl stamp is remarkable in comparison and rightfully corrects the wrongs of (gulp) 35 years ago. Bolstered with an exclusive 7" pressing of near-hit Talk About The Past coupled with the still muddy single Of The Matter, this repress highlights an era that The Wake never quite equalled.
For me it's Side Two where the band's strengths come to the fore - there isn't a dud in sight. The keen would-be single World Of Her Own is softly sung with accompanying harmonica before the first of three epics kick in. Torn Calendar is trippy and reflective and contains one of the most eye-watering little riffs in the middle its heartfelt balladry, All I Asked You To Do is soaked in waves of dewy-eyed synths before the title-track employs some dubbed up euphoria and the album ends as abruptly as it started.
All of which makes Here Comes Everybody something of a unique album. Not quite drippy indie-pop, not quite commercial enough yet utterly absorbing and I'll fight you fot it.
Meanwhile over in Durutti Column land, another double vinyl reissue off the back of a recent expanded digital issue. Vini Reilly, entitled after the group's main protaganist and musician, is perhaps the most timeless of Durutti Column's sprawling catalogue. Loaded with samples, chock full of terrific riffs and another casualty of poor pressing quality back in 1989, Vini Reilly is a masterpiece. You might even know some of the music on here - Otis appeared on the 24-Hour Party People soundtrack, while many of the pieces have been used in documentaries and idents over the years.
There's some stunning guitar work on Otis, Homage to Catalonia and Requiem Again, sprightly drumming and brushwork on They Work Every Day and My Country and some resounding production from Stephen Street.
The second disc includes live recordings from WOMAD '88 (I was there, somewhat unexpectedly) and a handful of outtakes from the era, while a further bonus 7" captures the innocence of a tangled recording session with Reilly and brief future collaborator and antagonist Morrissey, initially available with early copies of the 1989 original (and badly-pressed) LP.