
A Paean To Wilson - The Durutti Column Album Review

Album Review
This is Durutti Column's umpteenth album for Northampton's Kookydisc label and represents a landmark release. Apart from being a fantastic package designed by Trevor Johnson, it highlights the sole wish of one friend who just wanted to stop another friend from singing.....for his own good....
The Factory myths and legends are finally becoming public thanks to Peter Hook's recent book and CD mix "The Hacienda", the film "Control", the documentary "Joy Division", "24 Hour Party People", a resurgence of ex-label bands reforming for gigs (Brussels, Dec 12th - be there) and now this double epitaph aimed as a tribute to long-standing friend , TV presenter, punk curator and manager (ha, some hope) of Durutti Column, Anthony H. Wilson. Respect. Reminiscence. Recognition. Finally.
I have banged on about Factory Records for 3 decades to anyone with an ear attached to their head and I'm about to do the same again, this time in adoration for easily the best Durutti Column album since "The Guitar & Other Machines". Or "Obey The Time". Or "Vini Reilly". Or "Sunlight To Blue". Or the last almost-entirely non-vocal DC album, "Without Mercy". Just possibly. You see Durutti Column was Wilson's coveted lover, his baby and his wife for the entirety of the label's existence and beyond. He believed that Vini Reilly's ramshackle appearance and precision-like caressing of all things six-string was 'genius' - that Vini was a genius. But, he sang like a student with a 50-grand debt. So Wilson tried to stop him singing. It would have been easier to move China to the Moon. Vini kept singing. Mournfully. Sometimes beautifully. Sometimes not beautifully but, instead, painfully. Bastard.
I like a lot of Reilly's songs but I like his actual music a lot better. Here, on this album, are several reasons why I have opted for silence amongst the tonsils of the wired and wiry one almost every time.
This 2-CD package contains 12 tracks written and recorded as a result of Wilson hearing a new DC track just prior to his death and loving it. Reilly continued to craft and nurture his other musical charges (including oft-present drummer Bruce Mitchell and classical new-wave curator and viola maestro John Metcalfe) into making several more pieces after the passing of Granada's finest. It became a 'paean' indeed.
The opening loop of Tony asking "Is this an artform or are you just a technician?" spins from speaker to speaker before the incandescent power of "Chant" throbs into play like an approaching jump-jet before getting all sparkly and pretty. The journey has begun. The mood lightens with old wizard-fingers getting the last breaths out of a Portugese quatro (on "Quatro") before reaching a cataclysm of feedback-squalls on the revisit of "Requiem".
The whole set really starts to break out of the bunker during "Stuki" (sampled-voices galore) and the reflective collusion between Reilly, pianist Poppy Morgan and one-time member with the golden trumpet, Tim Kellett on "Along Came Poppy". I hate getting all muso - but I will. Kellett may well have served time playing for Simply Red but the man casts a serene and ghostly air like no-one else in his current field (I rank him up there with Jon Hassell and Mark Isham). "Brother" and "The Truth" borrow samples from soul music in an effective and respectful manner, not unlike some of the music on the album, "Vini Reilly". And then comes the moment I actually turned off every other noisy appliance in the house to pay complete attention to one track....
The album's centrepiece (for me) is a re-working of a rare little vignette of theirs called "Royal Infirmary" (from the often-ignored 1986 album "Circuses And Bread"). The newly-titled and re-arranged piece "Duet With Piano" is so poignant that you would have to have a heart of tarmac not to be moved by it. Don't get me wrong - this is a celebration album of both Reilly's musical genius and Wilson's talent-spotting genius. And it works. It's just so, well, absorbing and desolate at the same time. A new annotation of even-rarer B-side classic "Catos Con Guantes" displays a bewildering exhibition of Portugese acoustics - boy has this man got a set of fingers on him.
The extra disc, "Heaven Sent", was only previously available via F4 (another Factory incarnation) as a download and is a welcome addition here. All the tracks are named after Vini's close circle of friends and draw from previously released tracks with the addition of rare and intricate workouts from the vaults.
This set has been on sale at recent gigs and will be released via www.kookydisc.co.uk very soon. Keep 'em peeled - because no-one has made or will make music this spine-tingling again.
You may be interested in
- Fri 25th May 2012 to Fri 14th Sep 2012
- Fri 25th May 2012 to Sat 9th Jun 2012
- Sat 26th May 2012
- Acoustic Festival of Britain 2012, Joan Armatrading, Glenn T...
- Uttoxeter Racecourse (Uttoxeter)
- Tue 29th May 2012 to Sun 10th Jun 2012
- Fri 1st Jun 2012
- Peter Hook, Section 25
- Academy (Islington)
- Fri 1st Jun 2012
- Titanic Lockdown 2012, Happy Mondays, Factory Floor, Errors
- T13 Urban Playground (Belfast)
- Sat 2nd Jun 2012
- The Cravats, Punishment of Luxury
- Fibbers (York)
- Sat 2nd Jun 2012 and Mon 4th Jun 2012
- Sat 2nd Jun 2012
- Titanic Lockdown 2012, New Order, Anna Calvi, Ghostpoet, Lee...
- T13 Urban Playground (Belfast)
- Sat 2nd Jun 2012
- Stoke Newington Literary Festival 2012, John Cooper Clarke, ...
- Stoke Newington Town Hall (London)
- Sun 3rd Jun 2012
- Dot to Dot 2012, The Drums, Pulled Apart By Horses, Willy Ma...
- Various Nottingham Venues (Nottingham)
- Sun 3rd Jun 2012
- Stoke Newington Literary Festival 2012, Paul Morley
- Stoke Newington Town Hall (London)
- Mon 4th Jun 2012
- Hacienda 30 XXX, Kevin Saunderson, Graeme Park, Jon DaSilva,...
- Sankeys (Manchester)
- Tue 5th Jun 2012
- Chromatics
- Madame JoJo's (Soho)
- Wed 6th Jun 2012
- Neon Indian, Chromatics
- Village Underground/ The Arch (Shoreditch)
- Sat 9th Jun 2012
- Wychwood Festival 2012, James, Hawkwind, Sharon Shannon, Dr ...
- Cheltenham Racecourse (Cheltenham)
- Fri 15th Jun 2012 to Fri 19th Oct 2012
- Tue 26th Jun 2012 and Wed 27th Jun 2012
- Fri 29th Jun 2012
- The Hop Farm Festival 2012, Peter Gabriel, Ray Davies, Georg...
- The Hop Farm Country Park (Kent)
- Fri 29th Jun 2012 to Fri 6th Jul 2012
- Sat 30th Jun 2012
- The Hop Farm Festival 2012, Bob Dylan, Damien Rice, Patti Sm...
- The Hop Farm Country Park (Kent)
- Sat 30th Jun 2012
- Prague City Festival 2012, New Order, Amon Tobin, Hadouken!,...
- Vystaviste Holesovice (Czech Republic)
- Sun 1st Jul 2012
- The Hop Farm Festival 2012, Suede, Richard Ashcroft, Kool &a...
- The Hop Farm Country Park (Kent)
- Fri 6th Jul 2012
- T in the Park 2012, Snow Patrol, Florence and the Machine, T...
- Balado Airfield (Kinross)
- Fri 6th Jul 2012
- X-O-Dus
- Fort Perch Rock (Wirral)
- Sat 7th Jul 2012
- Antfest 2012, The Wolfmen, Johnny Normal
- Camden BarFly (London)
- Sun 8th Jul 2012
- T in the Park 2012, Kasabian, Elbow, Keane, Chase and Status...
- Balado Airfield (Kinross)
- Thu 12th Jul 2012
- Bilbao BBK Live 2012, The Cure, Snow Patrol, Bloc Party, Jon...
- Bilbao BBK (Bilbao)
- Fri 13th Jul 2012
- Exit Festival 2012, New Order, Buraka Som Sistema, DJ Lucian...
- Petrovaradin Fortress - Novi Sad (Serbia)
- Sat 14th Jul 2012
- Rhythms of the World Festival 2012, JuJu [Justin Adams and J...
- Hitchin Priory (Hitchin)
- Sat 14th Jul 2012
- Swing Out Sister
- Islington Assembly Hall [Town Hall] (London)




