Durutti Column, The - Treatise on the Steppenwolf + Human Avatars

Release date: 4/22/2023 (Record Store Day)

2xLP (180gm black vinyl album) + download. 15 tracks.

Factory Benelux presents the very first vinyl edition of the only soundtrack album recorded by The Durutti Column, the Factory Records ensemble fronted by lauded guitarist and composer Vini Reilly. A limited edition of 1000 copies on 180gm black vinyl have been pressed for Record Store Day 2023.

Treatise on the Steppenwolf is a soundtrack to the performance piece of the same name by experimental theatre group 12 Stars, written and directed by Gerard McInulty (of fellow Factory band The Wake), first staged in Glasgow in May 2003. Freely adapted from the celebrated counter-culture novel by Hermann Hesse, the performance is a portrait a divided character in an ongoing state of conflict.

‘Steppenwolf was something I’d read recently and when we approached Durutti Column with the idea it turned out they were interested too,’ explained McInulty. ‘People have described their music as ambient, although that’s a description they don’t care much for. It’s certainly atmospheric and there’s something about their sunny-sounding guitar that seemed appropriate to a book that, although published in 1927, didn’t become popular in America until the 1960s.’

This expanded vinyl edition combines the studio recordings of the 12 pieces performed live by The Durutti Column during the Glasgow run, along with 3 long and previously unreleased tracks from the Human Avatars art installation at Manchester MOSI in 2005.

Newly mastered for vinyl by Peter Beckman at TechnologyWorks, this limited Record Store Day edition also features new gatefold artwork by Howard Wakefield.

2xLP tracklist:

A1. A Beautiful Thought (Pt 1)
A2. Harry Dreams the Dream
A3. A Wolf of the Steppes
A4. Interlude
A5. The Title on the Cover
B1. Divided
B2. Magic Theatre
B3. Soul Track
B4. The Mothers and the Fathers
B5. A Beautiful Thought (Pt 2)
C1. Stupid Steppenwolf (Pt 1)
C2. Stupid Steppenwolf (Pt 2)
C3. Human Avatars (Pt 3)
D1. Human Avatars (Pt 1)
D2. Human Avatars (Pt 2)