Artist: THE DURUTTI COLUMN
Title: Without Mercy
Format : CD box set (4 discs)
Cat No: FBN 84 CD (44 tracks)
Released: 7 September 2018
Barcode: 708 527 180 044
PDP: £10.99 (see attached separate sheet for vinyl info)
Factory Benelux presents a deluxe 4xCD edition of Without Mercy, the fourth studio album by cult Manchester group The Durutti Column, originally issued in 1984 and widely regarded as Vini Reilly’s most ambitious album.
In 1983 Durutti Column mentor/manager Tony Wilson asked Vini Reilly to abandon fleeting guitar miniatures in favour of a long-form modern classical piece. The result was an ambitious 20 minute instrumental suite, Without Mercy, performed by core Durutti duo Vini Reilly and Bruce Mitchell along with Blaine L. Reininger and John Metcalfe (violas), Caroline Lavelle (cello), Tim Kellett (trumpet) and Maunagh Fleming (cor anglais).
Explains Vini: “Tony had just come in for a conversation one day and said, ‘Look, you keep making these albums that you want to make, and I’m quite happy with you doing that, but just give me this one album and do it my way.’ He wanted it to have a narrative determined by a Keats poem, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, which he said was the poet’s version of a pop song: boy meets girl, falls in love with girl, loses girl, blah blah blah. It was a very, very Tony way of looking at it. He had aspirations that I should be taken seriously.”
Produced by Reilly and Wilson at Strawberry Studio and Britannia Row, Without Mercy was originally split into 19 separate stanzas, some of which have now been restored using digital cue points on the CD. Bonus tracks include the original recordings of Duet, Estoril a Noite and Favourite Descending Intervals (all re-worked for inclusion on Without Mercy), as well as companion EP Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say, collaborations with John Metcalfe, Steven Brown and Benjamin Lew, and two previously unreleased live sets across Discs 3 and 4, recorded at London School of Economics in December 1984 and Oslo in December 1986.
The remastered 4xCD set is housed in a clamshell card box, with inner wallets and liner notes by Reilly, Wilson, Mitchell, Reininger and Metcalfe. The cover painting is L’Etang de Trivaux by Henri Matisse (1916/17)
CD box tracklist:
Disc 1:
1. Without Mercy (Stanzas I-III)
2. Without Mercy (Stanzas IV-VII)
3. Without Mercy (Stanza VIII)
4. Without Mercy (Stanzas IX-XII)
5. Without Mercy 2
6. All That Love and Maths Can Do
7. Snowflakes
8. Profondeurs des Eaux des Laques
9. The Sea Wall
10. Duet
11. Estoril a Noite
12. Favourite Descending Intervals
Disc 2
1. Goodbye
2. The Room
3. A Little Mercy
4. Silence
5. E.E.
6. Hello
7. Paresseuse Aussi
8. Mercy Theme (live Tokyo 1985)
9. A Little Mercy (live Tokyo 1985)
10. Estoril A Noite (live Rotterdam 1983)
11. Favourite Descending Intervals (live Manchester 2011)
Disc 3
1. Sketch for Summer (live LSE 1984)
2. Jacqueline (live LSE 1984)
3. Mercy Theme (live LSE 1984)
4. A Little Mercy (live LSE 1984)
5. Pauline (live LSE 1984)
6. Mercy Dance (live LSE 1984)
7. E.E. (live LSE 1984)
8. The Room (live LSE 1984)
9. Silence (live LSE 1984)
10. Ornithology (live LSE 1984)
11. Prayer (live LSE 1984)
12. The Beggar (live LSE 1984)
13. The Missing Boy (live LSE 1984)
14. Friends in Belgium (live LSE 1984)
Disc 4
1. Mercy Theme (live Oslo 1986)
2. A Little Mercy (live Oslo 1986)
3. Pauline (live Oslo 1986)
4. Mercy Dance (live Oslo 1986)
5. E.E. (live Oslo 1986)
6. Silence (live Oslo 1986)
7. The Room (live Oslo 1986)
8. Dream of a Child (live Oslo 1986)
9. Tomorrow (live Oslo 1986)
10. Blind Elevator Girl (live Oslo 1986)
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