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Whatever his municipal legacy, Tony Wilson was always a far-sighted dreamer. When he launched Factory, in January 1978, he did so not with music of then-fashionable boisterousness, but with a pallid solo artiste essaying delicately beguiling guitar instrumentals that owed more to flamenco, jazz and the soundtrack music of Popol Vuh, than to the Sex Pistols – anticipating post-rock and chill-out music by a good decade-and-a-half. The wan guitarist was Didsbury’s own Vini Reilly; his records would be released under the designation The Durutti Column (after an anarchist faction from the Spanish Civil War – Wilson’s idea, naturally).
Paean to Wilson is the 26th Durutti Column studio album, and the first to be recorded since its subject’s passing. It’s also the best thing Reilly has delivered for 20 years. His music has always had an elegiac quality, expressed through virtuosic fretboard cadences, delayed and filtered into fractals of emotion. It’s a crystalline, empyrean, yet inexorably human sound that proves a perfect, poignant medium with which to salute a dead friend.
There are voices aplenty here, too, including Wilson’s own dulcet tones on the opening Or Are You Just a Technician. Here, a line from an early Durutti Column interview is chopped and looped against itself – a la Steve Reich’s phase pieces – before receding beneath Chant: a sultry, minor chord requiem for jewel-like guitars and haunting female ululations. Wilson appears again at the album’s conclusion, this time ranting about the widening poverty gap and New Labour’s abject failings. It’s curiously affecting.
Elsewhere, we get pretty, Penguin Cafe Orchestra-like whimsy (Quatro), Phil Manzanera-esque guitar exoticism (Requiem), cheery World Music samples (Stuki), exquisite nylon string guitar etudes (Catos Revisited) and even some dextrously filleted passages from Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On (Brother, The Truth). It’s messy, uplifting, confounding, beautiful and just a little bit bonkers. Somewhere, you suspect, Tony Wilson is nodding along, approvingly. --David Sheppard
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Customer Reviews
A Paean to Wilson joins that select list of truly, magnificently great DC albums, up there with 'The Return of', 'Without Mercy''Vini Reilly' 'Time Was Gigantic' and 'Keep Breathing'.
There are no Vini vocals, though there are vocal samples dotted around.
Much of the content treads familiar ground, but does so with more grace, maturity, melodic assurance and beauty than he has ever done before. As well as Vini's guitar and machines, we get the great Bruce Mitchell on drums, Keir Stewart (bass/keyboards), Poppy Morgan (piano) and old friends John Metcalfe (viola) and Tim Kellet (trumpet). The textural layering is breathtaking. It's a very long album (73 minutes) but there is nothing here which is a second longer than it needs to be.
The album grew from loss (of his close friend and benefactor Tony Wilson) but I have never heard Vini sound this at peace with himself and his talent. At times the depth of melodic beauty on display is almost heartbreaking, which is, perhaps, fitting.
Still not sure? Try hearing 'Duet With Piano'. Familiar and yet...
And as a bonus you get the Heaven Sent ep (originally a digital download only) thrown in on a bonus CD. Another slice of prime DC and if you ain't got it yet, then make it so. Now.
And I've got enough DC albums now. Right?
Yeah, sure.
Line-up includes all time members: Vini Reilly, genious on guitar, ukulele, Bruce Mitchell, genious on drums, percussion, Keir Stewart, bass, Poppy Morgan on piano and John Metcalfe, viola and Tim Kellett on trumpet.
And you get a bonus CD! Fantastic "Heaven Sent" available before just as a download album.
Two CDs are packed in nice digipack case.
Highly recommended, enjoy!
Aleks
i wasn't a huge fan of wilson but i've nearly a tear in my eye as vivn plays his tribute to his friend. Read more
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