Factory Records
boss
Tony Wilson
was
Vini Reilly'
s first manager, his biggest supporter, and his close friend. After
Wilson'
s 2007 death, numerous public events commemorated his accomplishments, but
Reilly
sought to honor him by focusing on the person he knew outside the media spotlight. He felt the best way to do this was to create a musical suite his friend would have liked.
A Paean to Wilson
was the result.
underscores the album's conceptual unity by using
Wilson
's voice to frame it, opening with a 1980 sound byte of
playfully quizzing
Martin Hannett
about his production work and concluding with a politically charged excerpt from one of his last television appearances. The music between these bookends celebrates
's friendship and, fittingly, also looks back on
's own work: the two were inextricably linked, and
recognized that he might have never made his music were it not for
Wilson.
Consequently,
Paean
takes stock of the
Durutti Column'
s multifaceted, genre-defying sound over the years, straddling rock, folk, electronica, flamenco, classical, and the avant-garde. Given
's well-known antipathy towards
's singing, this is an instrumental album, with minimal vocal parts covered largely by samples, most notably from
Marvin Gaye'
s
"What's Going On."
The material ranges from the contemplative and elegiac (
"The Truth"
and
"Along Came Poppy"
) to the surprisingly harsh electric guitar squalls of
"Requiem,"
where
trades melancholy for raw anger at his friend's passing. Interestingly, the retrospective feeling is also reinforced by the way several pieces rework elements of earlier tracks (
"Catos Revisited";
"Duet with Piano";
"Requiem"
). Ultimately, while
was clearly left with an acute sense of loss and absence, this beautiful work gives his friend's spirit a continued presence. Not only is this a worthy tribute to
Wilson,
it's also the
s strongest release in some time. ~ Wilson Neate