Post your questions for Vini Reilly from Durutti Column | culture

AAt the end of July, Durutti Column will release their first new music in 16 years: the stunningly beautiful Renascent. It’s prime time for the return of Vini Reilly, Bruce Mitchell and Keir Stewart as Durutti’s influence is everywhere: sampled by Blood Orange on his latest album Essex Honey; Harry Styles cited it on his new LP Kiss All the Time. Disco, sometimes, as well as Mark William Lewis and Young Lin; Played on the bear.

Not that the group needs endorsements: since 1978, they’ve become one of the UK’s most recognizable acts, their dreamy instrumentation offering a sunlit alternative to post-punk rock, and last year’s reissue of their debut, The Return of the Durruti Column, reminded us. The record’s deviation from the standards of the era, Alexis Petridis wrote in a five-star review, “ultimately worked to its advantage: other than the sound of the primitive rhythm tracks, there’s nothing to connect the music here to a particular era, which means it’s undated.”

You can ask Riley about being the first to sign to Factory Records, where producer Martin Hannett put together his debut album Against His Will, working with Morrissey, learning to play guitar again after a stroke, and how this new album came to be. “I have a good excuse to stop now because I have arthritis,” he told us in 2023, but here we are, with a record as great as they’ve never made before.

Post your questions in the comments by the end of June 23 and the best answers will appear on Guardian Music soon.