Durutti Column, The - Obey the Time

3xCD box set. 43 tracks.

3xCD: Factory Benelux presents a deluxe 3xCD box set edition of Obey the Time, the eighth studio album by Manchester ensemble The Durutti Column. Originally released by Factory Records in December 1990, the original 10 tracks have now been expanded to no less than 43.

The multitude of studio extras spread across Discs 1 and 2 include single and remix tracks The Together Mix and Kiss of Def, rare compilation cuts such as The New Fidelity, The Awards Show and Times Like These, and several extracts from two unreleased Factory albums recorded during the same 1989/90 period: Guitar One: House (Fact 254) and Guitar Two: Acoustic (Fact 264).

Disc 3 features 11 live tracks from a previously unreleased performance at Manchester University Whitworth Hall on 23 June 1990 (opportunistically billed as ‘The Acid Guitar’), on which Reilly and Mitchell are joined by guests Andy Connell, Liu Sola and Rob Gray.

Original cover art by 8vo. The remastered set is housed in a clamshell card box, with individual inner sleeves and liner notes.

Largely self-produced, and entirely instrumental, Obey the Time saw DC mainman Vini Reilly further develop his interest in electronic music, and even embracing house and techno stylings. “The title came screaming off the TV screen in somebody’s version of Othello and captured exactly the feel of the work in progress,” explained Tony Wilson, Durutti manager and Factory founder. “We were in the middle of the Aceeed explosion. If you lived in Manchester, you were absolutely in the middle of it. Vini even explained why House made keyboards sound so fresh. Something to do with a chord being played with 3 or 4 notes into the sampler, but then different chords being triggered by a single key stroke. Creating mathematical harmonic relationships ‘which Schoenberg had searched for but never found.’”

Indeed veteran Durutti percussionist Bruce Mitchell features on just one track, Art and Freight. Marking a further break with tradition, dance exploration Contra-Indications was taped with New Order programmer (and later co-manager) Andy Robinson. Released in December 1990, Obey the Time would be the last Durutti Column album on Factory before the labelled collapsed beneath a mountain of debt.

3xCD tracklist:

Disc 1 

1. Vino Della Casa Bianco
2. Hotel of the Lake 1990
3. Fridays
4. Neon
5. Home
6. Spanish Reggae
7. Art and Freight
8. The Warmest Rain
9. Contra-Indications
10. Vino Della Casa Rosso
11. The Together Mix
12. For Zinni III
13. Fridays (Up-Person Mix)
14. Kiss of Def
15. The New Fidelity

Disc 2

1. Together – Razormaid Mix
2.Megamix
3. Dry
4. Out of the Blue
5. Paradise Passage Road
6. Rope Around My Neck
7. Short
8. Boat People 1
9. Boat People 2
10. Grade 2 Duet
11. Octaves
12. For Madelaine II
13. Pete’s Riff
14. The Crowned Goddess
15. Times Like These
16. The Awards Show
17. My Country (Monarchy Mix)

Disc 3

1. Home (live)
2. What It Means to Me (live)
3. English Landscape Tradition (live)
4. Opera II (live)
5. Finding the Sea (live)
6. Otis (live)
7. Jacqueline (live)
8. Requiem Again (live)
9. Take Some Time Out (live)
10. The Missing Boy (live)
11. Sketch for Summer (live)