The Durutti Column
Renascent
LONDON
Since 1978, Vini Reilly and The Durutti Column have created music of beautiful friction, the soundtrack of the spa of tears, the place where Satie meets Factory. Now, 16 long years since their last studio album, the great pioneers of elegant, expansive, autumnal post-punk have made a welcome return with Renascent, a record that does what Durutti Column always did best: conjure inventive, engaged inbreaths and outbreaths with sandpaper, seashells, ghost signs, and pink salt, driven by hallelujah clouds of forked-toaster guitars—lots of forked-toaster guitars. We can’t forget that Reilly is one of the most influential guitar architects of his era, and his distinctive pluck/echo, needle/chime style remains the prevalent element in the sound of Durutti Column 2026.
And even if Renascent is a little less pressured than past Durutti Column music (let’s just say it’s powered by a pound of feathers instead of a pound of flesh—a peculiar statement, I know, but it may make sense once you hear the album), Renascent is rich and lovely, unpretentious and open-hearted, and I actually like the album as much as any other full Durutti Column album. Possibly this is because it has an innocent, near-accidental quality, with much of the album feeling like half-sentences or the simplest thoughts caught on tape; or maybe it’s because it largely avoids the synthetic beats and low-volume Mancunian house-isms of many past Durutti Column albums. True, it’s unclear how much of this low-key (but by no means ambient) vibe is due to Reilly’s well-publicized health issues, or how much is just his desire to let the simplest movements of his fingers make the biggest statements; likewise, it’s difficult to assess whether this was an album made by Reilly, or with/around Reilly by producer/bassist Keir Stewart.
Regardless, the cause is far less interesting than the result, because whatever the reason, Renascent is a great dammit of screaming quiet. The album does feature a handful of heart-wrenching, hair-raising, and knee-buckling bangers, recalling that over the years Durutti Column didn’t just dabble in landscapes, but also in drop-dead awesome singles. “Sargasso Sea,” featuring vocals by folktronica artist Caoilfhionn Rose, is a flat-out jaw-to-the-floor tear-maker of understated intensity and heartbreak, though I prefer “For Friends Everywhere” with its melody driven by a stately, lonely horn, which has the sighing, end-of-day melancholy of one of those great British TV themes (think Coronation Street or Last of the Summer Wine). Both of these belong on any Durutti Column greatest hits mixtape.
I didn’t know I needed this album, but my god, I did. If Eliot wrote that “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” I have measured mine out with music of transcendental beauty and intensity, the kind pioneered—and still created—by Durutti Column.
