His big head of hair is still there, albeit flatter and greyer now, sitting on top of his agonisingly thin frame – a lifelong illness linked to post-traumatic stress disorder has meant he has struggled to eat very much. He greets us at the door with a soft smile and a gentle handshake, a half lit rollup clasped between darkly nicotine-stained fingers. We arrive at Reilly’s home down a cul-de-sac. His sound was sparse yet intricate, technically pristine, and as fiery and fluid as lava oozing down a mountainside. Eschewing the punk thrash or angular post-punk twang favoured by many players of that era, Reilly favoured a more subtle, tender, emotive and expressive style of playing – he never used a plectrum because he deemed the sound too harsh – blending jazz, classical and flamenco. Reilly, who had previously been the guitarist in another band, Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds, joined up, and the band contributed two tracks to A Factory Sample, a double 7-inch package that also featured Joy Division and Cabaret Voltaire, and which became the first ever release from the label.įrom 1980’s debut album The Return of the Durutti Column (released in a sandpaper sleeve designed to scratch any LPs that were placed on either side of it), Reilly would release 20 studio albums as the Durutti Column over the next three decades, with Mitchell and bass and keyboard player Keir Stewart as the band’s nucleus. The Durutti Column were put together by Factory boss Tony Wilson in 1978, rising from the ashes of of a punk band called Fast Breeder. So that’s enough of that.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian Reilly: ‘I’ve been through 13 psychiatrists.
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