Steven Wilson
Encyclopedia
Steven John Wilson is an English
musician, best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock
band Porcupine Tree
. He is involved in many other bands and musical projects both as musician and producer (including No-Man
and Blackfield
) and also maintains a solo career.
Wilson is a self-taught
producer, audio engineer, guitar and keyboard player, playing other instruments as and where required (including bass guitar
, concert harp, hammer dulcimer and flute
).
He used to split his living time between Tel Aviv
and London, England, but he no longer holds a permanent residence in Tel Aviv.
, London, England (but brought up in Hemel Hempstead
, Hertfordshire
, England from the age of 6), Wilson discovered his love for music around the age of 8. It began one Christmas when his parents bought presents for each other in the form of LPs
. His father and mother received Pink Floyd
's The Dark Side of the Moon
and Donna Summer
's Love to Love You Baby
, respectively. The young Steven spent much of his childhood listening to these albums in "heavy rotation", as he once commented.
Both LPs would influence his future song writing. He claims "...in retrospect I can see how they are almost entirely responsible for the direction that my music has taken ever since." His interest in Pink Floyd led him towards experimental
/psychedelic
conceptual
progressive rock (as exemplified by Porcupine Tree
and Blackfield
), and Donna Summer's trance
-inflected grooves
inspired the initial musical approach of No-Man
(Wilson's long-running collaboration with fellow musician and vocalist Tim Bowness
), although the band would later develop a more meditative and experimental Talk Talk
-esque approach.
As a child, Steven was forced to learn the guitar, but he did not enjoy it; his parents eventually stopped paying for lessons. However, at the age of 11 Wilson rescued a nylon string classical guitar
from his attic and started to experiment with it; or in his own words, "...scraping microphones across the strings, feeding the resulting sound into overloaded reel to reel tape recorders and producing a primitive form of multi-track recording by bouncing between two cassette machines." At the age of twelve, his father, who was an electronic engineer, built him his first multi-track tape machine and a Vocoder
so he could begin experimenting with the possibilities of studio recording.
One of these projects was the psychedelic duo Altamont (featuring a 15-year-old Wilson working with synth/electronics player Simon Vockings). Their one and only cassette album, Prayer for the Soul, featured lyrics by British psychedelic scenester Alan Duffy, whose work Wilson would later use for two Porcupine Tree songs: "This Long Silence" and "It Will Rain for a Million Years". Around the same time that Wilson was working as Altamont, he was also in a teenaged progressive rock band called Karma, who played live around Hertfordshire and recorded two cassette albums, The Joke's On You (1983) and The Last Man To Laugh (1985). These contained early versions of "Small Fish", "Nine Cats" and "The Joke's On You", which were subsequently resurrected as Porcupine Tree songs.
Wilson went on to join the New Wave/AOR band Pride of Passion as keyboard player, replacing former Marillion
keyboard player Brian Jelliman (another former Marillion member, Diz Minnitt, also played in the band). Pride of Passion would later change their name to Blazing Apostles and alter their lineup and approach, finally coming to an end in 1987.
and industrial
recordings, psychedelia and progressive rock. He was, however, also becoming more interested in songwriting and pop music, something that would manifest itself in his next developments.
In 1986, Wilson launched the two projects that would make his name. The first of these was initially called "No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man)", although it would later be renamed "No-Man
." This began life as a solo Wilson instrumental project blending progressive rock with synth pop, subsequently moving towards art-pop when singer/lyricist Tim Bowness
joined the project the following year. The second project was "Porcupine Tree
", which was originally a full-on pastiche of psychedelic rock (inspired by the similar Dukes of Stratosphear project by XTC
) and which was carried out for the mutual entertainment of Wilson and his schoolfriend Malcolm Stocks.
Over the next three years, the projects would evolve in parallel. No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man) was the first to release a commercial single (1989's "The Girl From Missouri", on Plastic Head Records), while Porcupine Tree built an increasing underground reputation via the release of a series of cassette-only releases via The Freak Emporium (the mail-order wing of British psychedelic label Delerium Records
).
By 1990, No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man) had fully evolved into No-Man and was a voice/violin/multi-instrument trio which had incorporated dance beats into its art-pop sound. The second No-Man single – a crooned cover of the Donovan
song "Colours" arranged in a dub-loop style anticipating trip-hop - won the Single of the Week award in Melody Maker
and gained the band a recording contract with the high-profile independent label One Little Indian (at the time, famous for The Shamen
and Björk
). Their debut One Little Indian single, "Days In The Trees", won the same Single of the Week award the following year. The single also briefly charted and, although sales were not outstanding, Wilson had now gained credibility in the record industry (as well as enough finance to fit out his home studio with the equipment he’d need to advance his music). By this time, he’d also released the official, lavishly packaged Porcupine Tree debut album, On the Sunday of Life...
(which compiled the best material from the underground tapes).
No-Man's debut full-length release – a compilation of EP tracks called Lovesighs – An Entertainment – followed in 1992, as did Porcupine Tree's infamous LSD-themed maxi-single "Voyage 34
" which made the NME
indie
chart for six weeks. No-Man also toured England with a six-piece band including three ex-members of the glam-pop band Japan
– Mick Karn
, Steve Jansen
and (most significantly) keyboardist
Richard Barbieri
. 1993 saw Wilson consolidating his initial success with albums from both Porcupine Tree (Up the Downstair
) and No-Man (Loveblows And Lovecries – A Confession). At the end of 1993, Porcupine Tree was launched as a four-piece live band featuring Wilson, Barbieri, bass player Colin Edwin
and former No-Man live drummer Chris Maitland
.
From this point onwards, Wilson would alternate between Porcupine Tree and No-Man releases. Although No-Man retired from live performance in 1994 (and would not return to the stage until 2006), the band continued to release a steady stream of albums featuring guests such as Barbieri, Steve Jansen, Robert Fripp
, Theo Travis
and Pat Mastelotto
, and has maintained a healthy cult following as well as continued critical acclaim. Porcupine Tree, meanwhile, toured frequently (steadily gaining credibility as a consistent band) and passed through various overt phases of different musical stylings (including psychedelia, progressive rock, modern guitar rock and heavy metal) while retaining the core of Wilson's sonic imagination and songwriting. By the mid-2000s Porcupine Tree had become a highly successful rock band with albums on major labels such as Atlantic and Roadrunner, with Wilson's singing, songwriting and frontman skills increasing by the year. Also by this time, Wilson had become in-demand as a producer and was being cited as an influence by various up-and-coming musicians.
and Incredible Expanding Mindfuck
(also known as IEM). He also began to release a series of CD singles under his own name.
Having established himself as a skilled producer with a very high standard of sound engineering, Wilson was invited to produce other artists, notably the Norwegian artist Anja Garbarek
and Swedish progressive-metal band Opeth
. Though he claims to enjoy production more than anything else, with the demands of his own projects, he has mostly restricted himself to mixing for other artists in the last few years.
More recently Wilson has become known for his 5.1 Surround Sound
mixes: the 2007 Porcupine Tree album Fear of a Blank Planet
was nominated for a Grammy in the "Best Mix For Surround Sound" category. The album was also voted #3 album of the year by Sound And Vision
. Wilson is currently working on several other surround sound projects, including remixing the Jethro Tull
and King Crimson
back catalogue.
Steven Wilson has recently begun to write reviews for the Mexican edition of the Rolling Stone
magazine. They're all translated to Spanish. Two reviews have been published so far: one for Radiohead
's In Rainbows
and other for Murcof
's 2007 work, Cosmos. He also contributes to UK magazine Classic Rock as an occasional reviewer.
, Love, Death & Mussolini
and The Nostalgia Factory
). For the first tape, he even wrote an inlay introduction to an obscure (imaginary) band called "The Porcupine Tree", suggesting the band met in the early '70s at a rock festival, and they had been in and out of prison many times. The booklet also contained information about band's obscure members like Sir Tarquin Underspoon and Timothy Tadpole-Jones, and crew members like Linton Samuel Dawson (if put into initials forming LSD
). Wilson: "It was a bit of fun. But of course like anything that starts as a joke, people started to take it all seriously!". When Wilson signed to Delerium
label, he selected what he considered the best tracks from these early tapes. All those songs were mastered and made up Porcupine Tree's first official studio album, On the Sunday of Life...
.
Quickly after, Wilson would release the single
"Voyage 34
", a thirty-minute long piece that could be described as a mixture of ambient, trance and psychedelia. This was done partly as an attempt to produce the longest single yet released, which it was until it was later exceeded by The Orb's "Blue Room." With non-existent radio play "Voyage 34" still managed to enter the NME
indie
chart for six weeks and became an underground chill-out
classic.
The second full-length album, Up the Downstair
(though Wilson considers it the first 'proper' PT album since it was made as such and not simply compiled), was released in 1993 and had a very good reception, praised by Melody Maker
as "a psychedelic masterpiece... one of the albums of the year". This was the first album to include ex-Japan
member, keyboardist
Richard Barbieri
and Australian-born bassist
Colin Edwin
. About the end of the year, Porcupine Tree became a full band for the first time with the inclusion of Chris Maitland
on drums
.
Wilson continued exploring the ambient and trance grounds and issued The Sky Moves Sideways
. It also entered the NME, Melody Maker, and Music Week
charts and many fans started hailing them as the Pink Floyd
of the nineties, something Wilson would reject: "I can't help that. It's true that during the period of 'The Sky Moves Sideways', I had done a little too much of it in the sense of satisfying, in a way, the fans of Pink Floyd who were listening to us because that group doesn't make albums any more. Moreover, I regret it".
The band's fourth work, Signify
, included the first full-band compositions and performance, which resulted in less use of drum machines and a more full-band sound. It can be considered a departure from its predecessors for a more song-oriented style. After the release of the live album Coma Divine
concluded their deal with Delerium in 1997, the band moved to Snapper
and issued two poppier albums, Stupid Dream
in 1999 and Lightbulb Sun
in 2000. Both were critical successes and only increased their popularity in the underground music scene.
Two years would pass until their sixth studio album, and in the meantime the band switched labels again, this time signing to Lava
, and drummer Chris Maitland
was replaced by Gavin Harrison
. Now with the support of a major label, In Absentia
saw the light of day in 2002, featuring a heavier sound than all the group's previous works. It charted in many European countries and remains one of the top-selling Porcupine Tree albums by now; it was also their first record to be released in 5.1 Surround Sound
, in a special edition of 2004 that shortly after won the "Best Made-For-Surround Title" award for the Surround Music Awards 2004. Another two years elapsed before its follow-up, Deadwing
, an ambitious and very cohesive record inspired by a film script by Steven Wilson and his friend Mike Bennion, was released in May 2005. This became the first Porcupine Tree album to chart the Billboard 200
, entering at #132. The album was prizewinning for the "Album of the Year" award on the Classic Rock
magazine awards and its surround version received the "Best Made-For-Surround Title" once again.
Steven Wilson started writing Porcupine Tree's next album in early 2006 in Tel Aviv
, Israel
, alongside work on the second album for his side-project Blackfield
. Writing sessions finished in London, UK, in June 2006, then in August of the same year, the band released their first live DVD
, titled Arriving Somewhere... and started a tour between September and November to promote it, during which the first half of each show was made up of all-new material. When the tour concluded the band went to studio and finished recording and mastering and added the last touches to the album. In early January 2007, the band revealed the album title was going to be Fear of a Blank Planet
(a deliberate reference to Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet
), and the concept was influenced by the Bret Easton Ellis
novel Lunar Park
. The album hit the shops on 16 April 2007 in Europe and April 24 in USA. The lyrics revolve around common 21st Century issues such as technology alienation, teen violence, prescription drugs, attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder
.
Fear of a Blank Planet resulted in the most successful album to date in terms of market and sales, and also received the most favourable reviews of the band's whole career. It entered the Billboard 200 at #59, and charted in almost all European countries, peaking at #31 in the UK. It was nominated for a US Grammy, and won several polls as the best album of the year (e.g. Classic Rock
magazine, Aardshock, The Netherlands). In July 2007 the Nil Recurring EP was released, containing other material that hadn't made it onto the album for one reason or another.
At a European show in August 2008, Wilson said that Porcupine Tree was beginning work on material for their next album with an eye toward a release in 2009. Consisting of one long 55 minute song along with 4 shorter songs on the second disc, The Incident
was released on September 14, 2009.
The Incident is a double CD set containing the self-titled 55 minute song cycle on disc 1. It has received significant attention and media coverage, and achieved for the band their highest chart positions to date, reaching 5 in The Netherlands, 9 in Germany, 23 in the UK, and 25 on the Billboard 200 in the USA. The subsequent tour of the US and Europe highlighted a large increase in the band's following, with many shows sold out. The single from The Incident, "Time Flies" was available as the free download from Itunes for one week in October 2009. A new DVD release is expected in Spring 2010, and a preview appeared on the band's website in April 2010.
. Influenced by everything from ambient music to hip-hop, their early singles and albums were a mixture of dance beats and lush orchestrations. However, after a few years the duo started to create more textural and experimental music, most comparable with later Talk Talk
. Beginning with Flowermouth
in 1994, they have worked with a very wide palette of sounds, and many guest musicians, blending balladry with both acoustic and electronic sounds. No-Man was the first Wilson project to achieve any degree of success, signing with UK independent label One Little Indian (the label of Björk
, The Shamen
and Skunk Anansie
among others), and releasing a string of critically acclaimed singles. The band remains an ongoing, predominantly studio-based project and continues to produce material, although it has never achieved the same level of commercial success as Porcupine Tree.
and experimental rock music. Initially Wilson had planned for the project to be anonymous, but then label Delerium Records published a song on their Pick N Mix compilation with the composition credited to "Steven Wilson" and so attempts to pass off the project in this way were abandoned. The project released 2 more albums Arcadia Son
, and IEM Have Come For Your Children, both in 2001. A box set of 4 CDs, consisting of everything Wilson recorded under the name - billed as "an homage and a final farewell to I.E.M." - was released in June 2010.
, drone
, and/or electronic vein. The atmosphere of the music has tended towards the dark and melancholic, but expressed with an almost Zen-like beauty. More recently Wilson has also started working with a guitar and laptop configuration to create fuzzy power drones. So far there have been several full length Bass Communion CDs, vinyl LPs, and singles, many of them issued in handmade or limited editions (which sell out very quickly) in elaborate packaging. Bass Communion has collaborated with many leading experimental musicians such as Muslimgauze
, Robert Fripp
, Vidna Obmana
(on the ongoing Continuum
project), Jonathan Coleclough, Colin Potter, Andrew Liles
, and several others.
star Aviv Geffen
, with whom he created the band Blackfield
. Since then the duo have released three highly acclaimed albums of what they refer to as "melodic and melancholic rock". The albums spawned several hits, notably "Blackfield", "Pain" and "Once". The band has toured several times, and a live DVD of their show in New York was released in 2007. A third album, titled "Welcome to my DNA
" was released on 28 March 2011 with a European and American tour to follow.
, the front man of Opeth
decided to work on a new project as a collaboration under the name of Storm Corrosion. the self-titled album is set to be released in April 2012 on Roadrunner Records
. Some part of recordings took its part from Opeths 2011 album Heritage
and Steven's 2011 album Grace for Drowning.
, Swedish pop group Abba
, UK rock band The Cure
, Scottish songwriter Momus
, Prince
, and Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan
.
Separate from the Cover Versions series, Wilson has also contributed a cover version of the Cardiacs
song "Stoneage Dinosaurs" to Leader Of The Starry Skies: A Tribute To Tim Smith, Songbook 1
(a fundraising compilation album released in December 2010 to benefit the hospitalised Cardiacs
leader Tim Smith, whom Wilson has cited as a major inspiration spiritually, if not necessarily in style).
, recorded all over the world between January–August, as a double CD plus a DVD-A (limited to 3,000 copies) and a 4 x 10 inch vinyl version (limited to 1,000 copies), both with hardback book featuring the images of acclaimed and long time collaborator Danish photographer Lasse Hoile
. A standard retail CD version (also including the 5.1 DVD-A) was released on 9 March 2009.
Lasse Hoile's full length feature version of the film based on the recording of the album was premiered at the CPH:DOX international film festival in Copenhagen in November 2009. The film will also be screened at film festivals in Sweden, Germany, Mexico, USA, and Canada. The film is described as part documentary / part surreal road movie. Lasse also directed a video for the song Harmony Korine from the Insurgentes album - the video was a homage to some of Steven and Lasse's favourite European art house films, and has been nominated for Best Cinematography Award and Best Music Video Award at the prestigious Plus Camerimage - International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Awards.
A remix mini album was released in November, featuring remixes of material from Insurgentes by TV on the Radio's David A. Sitek, Dälek, Engineers, Pat Mastelotto
, and Fear Falls Burning.
, was released in September 2011 in CD, vinyl and blu-ray formats. It is a double album, with the individual parts named Deform to Form a Star and Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye. He also announced his first solo tour, in Europe and North America, to promote his solo albums. The tour will take place in October and November 2011 and will contain songs from both Insurgentes and Grace for Drowning.
. The website currently holds much information about the new album. Steven is also recording a collaborative album with Swedish
band Opeth
's singer, guitarist and composer Mikael Åkerfeldt
tentatively titled Storm Corrosion.
On March 2011, Steven revealed on his Facebook account, that:
Steven has also worked on and off on a new Bass Communion album called Cenotaph.
and contributed backing vocals
, guitar
and keyboards
for Opeth
on the albums Blackwater Park
, Deliverance, and Damnation
. In addition to this, he has collaborated on many projects with Belgian experimental musician Dirk Serries of Vidna Obmana
and Fear Falls Burning, most notably on their collaboration project Continuum
which has so far produced two albums. Wilson is also featured on a Fovea Hex EP "Allure" (Part 3 of the "Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent" trilogy of EP's) on bass guitar. This EP was released in April 2007 through Die-Stadt Musik.
Steven Wilson has also worked with OSI
, Marillion
, JBK, Orphaned Land
, Paatos
, Theo Travis
, Yoko Ono
, Fish
, Cipher
and Anja Garbarek
performing songwriting duties as well as performing musically. Most recently, Wilson is featured on the Pendulum
album "Immersion
", with his vocals featuring on "The Fountain". He made a guest appearance on Dream Theater
's 2007 album, Systematic Chaos
on the song "Repentance", as one of several musical guests recorded apologizing to important people in their lives for wrongdoings in the past.
Wilson did an interview with German musician and composer
Klaus Schulze
. Schulze was an important figure of the Krautrock
movement. This interview is featured as bonus material in Schulze's Live DVD, Rheingold.
The most recent Anathema
album, We're Here Because We're Here, was mixed by Wilson in a period beginning January 2010 and he is thanked in the album liner notes. A current ongoing project for Wilson is remixing the back catalogue of King Crimson
from 1969 to 1984 into MLP (Meridian Lossless Packaging) 5.1 and new stereo mixes. The first three new editions were issued in October 2009, with more emerging in batches over the coming years.
Wilson:
He often uses a carpet on stage to keep his feet protected, which is often seen on the Anesthetize live DVD.
Remix albums
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
musician, best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
band Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree is a progressive rock band formed by Steven Wilson in 1987 in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. Their music is difficult to categorise, being associated with both psychedelic rock and progressive rock, yet having been influenced by trance, krautrock and ambient due to Steven...
. He is involved in many other bands and musical projects both as musician and producer (including No-Man
No-Man
No-Man are a British art-pop duo formed in 1987 as No Man Is An Island by singer Tim Bowness and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson . The band has so far produced six studio albums and a number of singles/outtakes collections...
and Blackfield
Blackfield
Blackfield is a collaboratory musical group between Porcupine Tree founder and lead singer Steven Wilson and Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen.-Formation, self-titled debut :...
) and also maintains a solo career.
Wilson is a self-taught
Autodidacticism
Autodidacticism is self-education or self-directed learning. In a sense, autodidacticism is "learning on your own" or "by yourself", and an autodidact is a person who teaches him or herself something. The term has its roots in the Ancient Greek words αὐτός and διδακτικός...
producer, audio engineer, guitar and keyboard player, playing other instruments as and where required (including bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, concert harp, hammer dulcimer and flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
).
He used to split his living time between Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
and London, England, but he no longer holds a permanent residence in Tel Aviv.
Background and early years
Born in Kingston upon ThamesKingston upon Thames
Kingston upon Thames is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in southwest London. It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned and is now a suburb situated south west of Charing Cross. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the...
, London, England (but brought up in Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead is a town in Hertfordshire in the East of England, to the north west of London and part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2001 Census was 81,143 ....
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, England from the age of 6), Wilson discovered his love for music around the age of 8. It began one Christmas when his parents bought presents for each other in the form of LPs
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
. His father and mother received Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
's The Dark Side of the Moon
The Dark Side of the Moon
The Dark Side of the Moon is the eighth studio album by English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released in March 1973. It built on ideas explored in the band's earlier recordings and live shows, but lacks the extended instrumental excursions that characterised their work following the departure...
and Donna Summer
Donna Summer
LaDonna Adrian Gaines , known by her stage name, Donna Summer, is an American singer/songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s. She has a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Summer is a five-time Grammy winner and was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach...
's Love to Love You Baby
Love to Love You Baby
Love to Love You Baby is the second album by Donna Summer, and her first to be released internationally and in the US. Her previous album Lady of the Night was released only in the Netherlands. Love to Love You Baby was released in the US on August 27, 1975.-History:In the summer of 1975, Summer...
, respectively. The young Steven spent much of his childhood listening to these albums in "heavy rotation", as he once commented.
Both LPs would influence his future song writing. He claims "...in retrospect I can see how they are almost entirely responsible for the direction that my music has taken ever since." His interest in Pink Floyd led him towards experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
/psychedelic
Psychedelic music
Psychedelic music covers a range of popular music styles and genres, which are inspired by or influenced by psychedelic culture and which attempt to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in the...
conceptual
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
progressive rock (as exemplified by Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree is a progressive rock band formed by Steven Wilson in 1987 in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. Their music is difficult to categorise, being associated with both psychedelic rock and progressive rock, yet having been influenced by trance, krautrock and ambient due to Steven...
and Blackfield
Blackfield
Blackfield is a collaboratory musical group between Porcupine Tree founder and lead singer Steven Wilson and Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen.-Formation, self-titled debut :...
), and Donna Summer's trance
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
-inflected grooves
Groove (popular music)
Groove is the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or sense of "swing" created by the interaction of the music played by a band's rhythm section . Groove is a consideration in genres such as salsa, funk, rock, fusion, and soul...
inspired the initial musical approach of No-Man
No-Man
No-Man are a British art-pop duo formed in 1987 as No Man Is An Island by singer Tim Bowness and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson . The band has so far produced six studio albums and a number of singles/outtakes collections...
(Wilson's long-running collaboration with fellow musician and vocalist Tim Bowness
Tim Bowness
Tim Bowness is a singer/songwriter primarily known for his work as part of the band No-Man, a long-term project formed in 1987 with Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson.-Music career:...
), although the band would later develop a more meditative and experimental Talk Talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk were an English musical group, active from 1981 to 1991. The group had a string of international hit singles including "Today", "Talk Talk", "It's My Life", "Such a Shame", "Dum Dum Girl", "Life's What You Make It" and "Living in Another World"....
-esque approach.
As a child, Steven was forced to learn the guitar, but he did not enjoy it; his parents eventually stopped paying for lessons. However, at the age of 11 Wilson rescued a nylon string classical guitar
Classical guitar
The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...
from his attic and started to experiment with it; or in his own words, "...scraping microphones across the strings, feeding the resulting sound into overloaded reel to reel tape recorders and producing a primitive form of multi-track recording by bouncing between two cassette machines." At the age of twelve, his father, who was an electronic engineer, built him his first multi-track tape machine and a Vocoder
Vocoder
A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...
so he could begin experimenting with the possibilities of studio recording.
Early bands
It didn't take long before he began to form bands with his friends from school and play live. However, the activity which kept him satisfied the most was that of experimenting with sounds and producing the recordings he made. Between the years 1983 and 1986 he began to record material for release. Some of those tapes have recently resurfaced due to the increasing popularity of Porcupine Tree. Wilson describes it as "...a bit like a painter having his nursery school paint blots on display..."One of these projects was the psychedelic duo Altamont (featuring a 15-year-old Wilson working with synth/electronics player Simon Vockings). Their one and only cassette album, Prayer for the Soul, featured lyrics by British psychedelic scenester Alan Duffy, whose work Wilson would later use for two Porcupine Tree songs: "This Long Silence" and "It Will Rain for a Million Years". Around the same time that Wilson was working as Altamont, he was also in a teenaged progressive rock band called Karma, who played live around Hertfordshire and recorded two cassette albums, The Joke's On You (1983) and The Last Man To Laugh (1985). These contained early versions of "Small Fish", "Nine Cats" and "The Joke's On You", which were subsequently resurrected as Porcupine Tree songs.
Wilson went on to join the New Wave/AOR band Pride of Passion as keyboard player, replacing former Marillion
Marillion
Marillion are a British rock band, formed in Aylesbury, England in 1979. Their recorded studio output comprises sixteen albums generally regarded in two distinct eras, delineated by the departure of original vocalist & frontman Fish in late 1988, and the subsequent arrival of replacement Steve...
keyboard player Brian Jelliman (another former Marillion member, Diz Minnitt, also played in the band). Pride of Passion would later change their name to Blazing Apostles and alter their lineup and approach, finally coming to an end in 1987.
Breakthrough work
Up to this point Wilson's diverse musical experiments had contained avant-gardeAvant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
and industrial
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
recordings, psychedelia and progressive rock. He was, however, also becoming more interested in songwriting and pop music, something that would manifest itself in his next developments.
In 1986, Wilson launched the two projects that would make his name. The first of these was initially called "No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man)", although it would later be renamed "No-Man
No-Man
No-Man are a British art-pop duo formed in 1987 as No Man Is An Island by singer Tim Bowness and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson . The band has so far produced six studio albums and a number of singles/outtakes collections...
." This began life as a solo Wilson instrumental project blending progressive rock with synth pop, subsequently moving towards art-pop when singer/lyricist Tim Bowness
Tim Bowness
Tim Bowness is a singer/songwriter primarily known for his work as part of the band No-Man, a long-term project formed in 1987 with Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson.-Music career:...
joined the project the following year. The second project was "Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree is a progressive rock band formed by Steven Wilson in 1987 in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. Their music is difficult to categorise, being associated with both psychedelic rock and progressive rock, yet having been influenced by trance, krautrock and ambient due to Steven...
", which was originally a full-on pastiche of psychedelic rock (inspired by the similar Dukes of Stratosphear project by XTC
XTC
XTC were a New Wave band from Swindon, England, active between 1976 and 2005. The band enjoyed some chart success, including the UK and Canadian hits "Making Plans for Nigel" and "Senses Working Overtime" , but are perhaps even better known for their long-standing critical success.- Early years:...
) and which was carried out for the mutual entertainment of Wilson and his schoolfriend Malcolm Stocks.
Over the next three years, the projects would evolve in parallel. No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man) was the first to release a commercial single (1989's "The Girl From Missouri", on Plastic Head Records), while Porcupine Tree built an increasing underground reputation via the release of a series of cassette-only releases via The Freak Emporium (the mail-order wing of British psychedelic label Delerium Records
Delerium Records
Delerium Records was a UK record label, that specialised in psychedelic music which ran from 1991 to 2003, and was notable in promoting the careers of bands including Porcupine Tree, Ozric Tentacles, Kava Kava, Mandragora, Sons of Selina and Moom and for starting the Freak Emporium and Molten...
).
By 1990, No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man) had fully evolved into No-Man and was a voice/violin/multi-instrument trio which had incorporated dance beats into its art-pop sound. The second No-Man single – a crooned cover of the Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
song "Colours" arranged in a dub-loop style anticipating trip-hop - won the Single of the Week award in Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
and gained the band a recording contract with the high-profile independent label One Little Indian (at the time, famous for The Shamen
The Shamen
The Shamen were an experimental electronic music band, from 1985–1999, initially formed in Aberdeen, Scotland, as a psychedelic-influenced indie rock act. The founding members are Colin Angus , Derek McKenzie and Keith McKenzie...
and Björk
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...
). Their debut One Little Indian single, "Days In The Trees", won the same Single of the Week award the following year. The single also briefly charted and, although sales were not outstanding, Wilson had now gained credibility in the record industry (as well as enough finance to fit out his home studio with the equipment he’d need to advance his music). By this time, he’d also released the official, lavishly packaged Porcupine Tree debut album, On the Sunday of Life...
On the Sunday of Life
On the Sunday of Life is the debut album of English progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in July, 1991. It compiles tracks that Steven Wilson produced and recorded for two cassette-only releases, Tarquin's Seaweed Farm and The Nostalgia Factory...
(which compiled the best material from the underground tapes).
No-Man's debut full-length release – a compilation of EP tracks called Lovesighs – An Entertainment – followed in 1992, as did Porcupine Tree's infamous LSD-themed maxi-single "Voyage 34
Voyage 34
"Voyage 34" is a single by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. Although it was originally thought to be a song for the album Up the Downstair, making it a double album, this idea was later rejected so it was released separately....
" which made the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
indie
Indie (music)
In music, independent music, often shortened to indie music or "indie" is a term used to describe independence from major commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, and an autonomous, Do-It-Yourself approach to recording and publishing....
chart for six weeks. No-Man also toured England with a six-piece band including three ex-members of the glam-pop band Japan
Japan (band)
Japan were a British New Wave group, formed in 1974 in Catford, South London. The band achieved success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they were often associated with the burgeoning New Romantic fashion movement .- History :The band began as a group of friends...
– Mick Karn
Mick Karn
Andonis Michaelides , better known as Mick Karn, was an English multi-instrumentalist musician and songwriter, who came to fame as the bassist for the art rock band Japan, from 1974 to 1982....
, Steve Jansen
Steve Jansen
Steve Jansen is an English drummer, percussionist, singer and composer. He was educated at Catford Boys' School, Catford, South East London, where he failed academically, leaving at 16....
and (most significantly) keyboardist
Keyboardist
A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...
Richard Barbieri
Richard Barbieri
Richard Barbieri, is an English synthesiser player, keyboardist and composer. He was educated at Catford Boys' School, Catford, South East London...
. 1993 saw Wilson consolidating his initial success with albums from both Porcupine Tree (Up the Downstair
Up the Downstair
Up the Downstair is the second studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in May 1993. It was originally intended to be a double album set including the song "Voyage 34", which was instead released as a single in 1992, and other material that ended up on the...
) and No-Man (Loveblows And Lovecries – A Confession). At the end of 1993, Porcupine Tree was launched as a four-piece live band featuring Wilson, Barbieri, bass player Colin Edwin
Colin Edwin
Colin Edwin is a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, where he plays both fretted and fretless bass guitar as well as double bass and guimbri. He joined the band in December 1993...
and former No-Man live drummer Chris Maitland
Chris Maitland
Chris Maitland is an English drummer.After being the drummer for No-Man on their Autumn 1993 tour , Maitland was asked by the band's Steven Wilson to join his other main project, the progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
.
From this point onwards, Wilson would alternate between Porcupine Tree and No-Man releases. Although No-Man retired from live performance in 1994 (and would not return to the stage until 2006), the band continued to release a steady stream of albums featuring guests such as Barbieri, Steve Jansen, Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
, Theo Travis
Theo Travis
Theo Travis is a British saxophonist and flautist.Travis received his degree in flute and saxophone from the University of Manchester and has worked among others with Robert Fripp, Gong, Porcupine Tree, The Tangent, Bill Nelson, Bass Communion, No-Man, Steven Wilson, David Sylvian, Harold Budd,...
and Pat Mastelotto
Pat Mastelotto
Pat Mastelotto is a rock drummer who has worked with Mr. Mister and King Crimson, amongst others. For King Crimson he initially formed part of the "double trio" lineup, joining Bill Bruford on drums...
, and has maintained a healthy cult following as well as continued critical acclaim. Porcupine Tree, meanwhile, toured frequently (steadily gaining credibility as a consistent band) and passed through various overt phases of different musical stylings (including psychedelia, progressive rock, modern guitar rock and heavy metal) while retaining the core of Wilson's sonic imagination and songwriting. By the mid-2000s Porcupine Tree had become a highly successful rock band with albums on major labels such as Atlantic and Roadrunner, with Wilson's singing, songwriting and frontman skills increasing by the year. Also by this time, Wilson had become in-demand as a producer and was being cited as an influence by various up-and-coming musicians.
Diversification
During the late 90's Wilson's love of experimental, drone and ambient music began to manifest itself in a series of new projects, notably Bass CommunionBass Communion
Bass Communion is a side project of Steven Wilson, best known for his lead role in the rock band Porcupine Tree. Records released under the name "Bass Communion" are in an ambient or electronic vein - lengthy drone-heavy compositions...
and Incredible Expanding Mindfuck
Incredible Expanding Mindfuck
Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, also known as I.E.M., was a musical project by Steven Wilson . Its work is mainly influenced by Krautrock and experimental music from the 1960s and 1970s.-Background and history:...
(also known as IEM). He also began to release a series of CD singles under his own name.
Having established himself as a skilled producer with a very high standard of sound engineering, Wilson was invited to produce other artists, notably the Norwegian artist Anja Garbarek
Anja Garbarek
Anja Garbarek is a Norwegian singer-songwriter of mixed Norwegian and Polish descent. She is the daughter of the Norwegian jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek and grew up around Oslo. She received the Spellemannsprisen in 2001 for her album Smiling & Waving in the open class category. She is married to...
and Swedish progressive-metal band Opeth
Opeth
Opeth is a Swedish heavy metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1990. Though the group has been through several personnel changes, singer, guitarist, and songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt has remained Opeth's driving force throughout the years...
. Though he claims to enjoy production more than anything else, with the demands of his own projects, he has mostly restricted himself to mixing for other artists in the last few years.
More recently Wilson has become known for his 5.1 Surround Sound
5.1 surround sound
5.1 is the common name for six channel surround sound multichannel audio systems. 5.1 is now the most commonly used layout in both commercial cinemas and home theaters. It uses five full bandwidth channels and one low frequency enhancement channel . Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II, DTS, and...
mixes: the 2007 Porcupine Tree album Fear of a Blank Planet
Fear of a Blank Planet
Fear of a Blank Planet is the ninth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree and their best selling . Released by Roadrunner on 16 April 2007 in the UK and Europe, 24 April 2007 in the United States through Atlantic, 25 April 2007 in Japan on WHD and 1 May 2007 in Canada by WEA...
was nominated for a Grammy in the "Best Mix For Surround Sound" category. The album was also voted #3 album of the year by Sound And Vision
Sound and Vision (magazine)
Sound & Vision is an American magazine, published by Bonnier Corporation, covering home theater, audio, video and multimedia consumer products....
. Wilson is currently working on several other surround sound projects, including remixing the Jethro Tull
Jethro Tull (band)
Jethro Tull are a British rock group formed in 1967. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969.Initially playing blues rock with...
and King Crimson
King Crimson
King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
back catalogue.
Steven Wilson has recently begun to write reviews for the Mexican edition of the Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine. They're all translated to Spanish. Two reviews have been published so far: one for Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
's In Rainbows
In Rainbows
In Rainbows is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was first released on 10 October 2007 as a digital download self-released, that customers could order for whatever price they saw fit, followed by a standard CD release in most countries during the last week of 2007. The...
and other for Murcof
Murcof
Murcof is the performing and recording name of Mexican electronica artist Fernando Corona.Corona was born in 1970 in Tijuana, Mexico and raised in Ensenada. He was for a time a member of the Tijuana-based Nortec Collective of electronic musicians under the Terrestre project name...
's 2007 work, Cosmos. He also contributes to UK magazine Classic Rock as an occasional reviewer.
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree started out as a duo of Wilson and his schoolfriend Malcolm Stocks (with Wilson providing the majority of the instrumentation and Stocks contributing mostly ideas, additional vocals and experimental guitar sounds). Wilson began experimenting by recording music in his home until he had the hunch it could become someway marketable. The material was subsequently compiled into three demo tapes (Tarquin's Seaweed FarmTarquin's Seaweed Farm
Tarquin's Seaweed Farm, subtitled "Words from a Hessian Sack", is the first album to be released by Steven Wilson under the name 'Porcupine Tree'. It was originally a compiled cassette of experimental music made by Steven Wilson for his joke band he formed with his friend Malcom Stocks...
, Love, Death & Mussolini
Love, Death & Mussolini
The Love, Death & Mussolini E.P. was a cassette released by Steven Wilson under the pseudonym of 'Porcupine Tree'. It compiles a total of nine tracks of which seven were shortly after released in The Nostalgia Factory...
and The Nostalgia Factory
The Nostalgia Factory
The Nostalgia Factory, subtitled "...and other tips for amateur golfers", is the second album to be released by Steven Wilson under the name 'Porcupine Tree'. It was the second full-length cassette produced for his 'joke' project with friend Malcom Stocks...
). For the first tape, he even wrote an inlay introduction to an obscure (imaginary) band called "The Porcupine Tree", suggesting the band met in the early '70s at a rock festival, and they had been in and out of prison many times. The booklet also contained information about band's obscure members like Sir Tarquin Underspoon and Timothy Tadpole-Jones, and crew members like Linton Samuel Dawson (if put into initials forming LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
). Wilson: "It was a bit of fun. But of course like anything that starts as a joke, people started to take it all seriously!". When Wilson signed to Delerium
Delerium Records
Delerium Records was a UK record label, that specialised in psychedelic music which ran from 1991 to 2003, and was notable in promoting the careers of bands including Porcupine Tree, Ozric Tentacles, Kava Kava, Mandragora, Sons of Selina and Moom and for starting the Freak Emporium and Molten...
label, he selected what he considered the best tracks from these early tapes. All those songs were mastered and made up Porcupine Tree's first official studio album, On the Sunday of Life...
On the Sunday of Life
On the Sunday of Life is the debut album of English progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in July, 1991. It compiles tracks that Steven Wilson produced and recorded for two cassette-only releases, Tarquin's Seaweed Farm and The Nostalgia Factory...
.
Quickly after, Wilson would release the single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
"Voyage 34
Voyage 34
"Voyage 34" is a single by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. Although it was originally thought to be a song for the album Up the Downstair, making it a double album, this idea was later rejected so it was released separately....
", a thirty-minute long piece that could be described as a mixture of ambient, trance and psychedelia. This was done partly as an attempt to produce the longest single yet released, which it was until it was later exceeded by The Orb's "Blue Room." With non-existent radio play "Voyage 34" still managed to enter the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
indie
Indie (music)
In music, independent music, often shortened to indie music or "indie" is a term used to describe independence from major commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, and an autonomous, Do-It-Yourself approach to recording and publishing....
chart for six weeks and became an underground chill-out
Relaxation technique
A relaxation technique is any method, process, procedure, or activity that helps a person to relax; to attain a state of increased calmness; or otherwise reduce levels of anxiety, stress or anger...
classic.
The second full-length album, Up the Downstair
Up the Downstair
Up the Downstair is the second studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in May 1993. It was originally intended to be a double album set including the song "Voyage 34", which was instead released as a single in 1992, and other material that ended up on the...
(though Wilson considers it the first 'proper' PT album since it was made as such and not simply compiled), was released in 1993 and had a very good reception, praised by Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
as "a psychedelic masterpiece... one of the albums of the year". This was the first album to include ex-Japan
Japan (band)
Japan were a British New Wave group, formed in 1974 in Catford, South London. The band achieved success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they were often associated with the burgeoning New Romantic fashion movement .- History :The band began as a group of friends...
member, keyboardist
Keyboardist
A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...
Richard Barbieri
Richard Barbieri
Richard Barbieri, is an English synthesiser player, keyboardist and composer. He was educated at Catford Boys' School, Catford, South East London...
and Australian-born bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
Colin Edwin
Colin Edwin
Colin Edwin is a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, where he plays both fretted and fretless bass guitar as well as double bass and guimbri. He joined the band in December 1993...
. About the end of the year, Porcupine Tree became a full band for the first time with the inclusion of Chris Maitland
Chris Maitland
Chris Maitland is an English drummer.After being the drummer for No-Man on their Autumn 1993 tour , Maitland was asked by the band's Steven Wilson to join his other main project, the progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
on drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
.
Wilson continued exploring the ambient and trance grounds and issued The Sky Moves Sideways
The Sky Moves Sideways
The Sky Moves Sideways is the third studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in February, 1995. It has been compared to Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here because of their similar structure; both albums have extended pieces at the beginning and end, which are the...
. It also entered the NME, Melody Maker, and Music Week
Music Week
Music Week is a trade paper for the UK record industry.Founded in 1959 as Record Retailer, it was relaunched on 18 March 1972 as Music Week . On 17 January 1981 the title was again changed, owing to the increasing importance of sell-through videos, to Music & Video Week...
charts and many fans started hailing them as the Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
of the nineties, something Wilson would reject: "I can't help that. It's true that during the period of 'The Sky Moves Sideways', I had done a little too much of it in the sense of satisfying, in a way, the fans of Pink Floyd who were listening to us because that group doesn't make albums any more. Moreover, I regret it".
The band's fourth work, Signify
Signify
Signify is the fourth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in September 1996. It was the first album that frontman Steven Wilson recorded with a full group of musicians on board from the beginning. Previously he had been recording albums primarily as a...
, included the first full-band compositions and performance, which resulted in less use of drum machines and a more full-band sound. It can be considered a departure from its predecessors for a more song-oriented style. After the release of the live album Coma Divine
Coma Divine - Recorded Live in Rome
Coma Divine – Recorded Live in Rome or just Coma Divine, is a live album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in October, 1997. It was expanded to a double album in 2003, adding the two tracks from the promotional single Coma Divine II , and two more previously unreleased...
concluded their deal with Delerium in 1997, the band moved to Snapper
Snapper Music
Snapper Music is an independent record label founded in 1996 by former head of Castle Communications Jon Beecher, Dougie Dudgeon and funded by the late Mark Levinson from Palan Music Publishing. In 1999 Snapper broke away from its parent company in an MBO in association with ACT and CAI venture...
and issued two poppier albums, Stupid Dream
Stupid Dream
Stupid Dream is the fifth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in March 1999. It became the band's best selling album up to the time of its release....
in 1999 and Lightbulb Sun
Lightbulb Sun
-2008 Reissues:A reissue of Lightbulb Sun was released on April 21, 2008 through Kscope as 2 disc set; or a 3 disc set for the first 5,000 pre-ordered copies. Disc one is a CD containing a remastered version of the original album album, while disc two is a DVD-A containing the album remixed into...
in 2000. Both were critical successes and only increased their popularity in the underground music scene.
Two years would pass until their sixth studio album, and in the meantime the band switched labels again, this time signing to Lava
Lava Records
Lava Records is an American based record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and operated through Universal Republic Records.-Company history:...
, and drummer Chris Maitland
Chris Maitland
Chris Maitland is an English drummer.After being the drummer for No-Man on their Autumn 1993 tour , Maitland was asked by the band's Steven Wilson to join his other main project, the progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
was replaced by Gavin Harrison
Gavin Harrison
Gavin Harrison is a British drummer and percussionist. He is best known for playing with the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree which he joined in 2002. As of 2008, he also plays with the band King Crimson....
. Now with the support of a major label, In Absentia
In Absentia
In Absentia is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. It was their first release on a major record label, Lava Records. It is Metal Storm's number 3 of the Top 20 albums of 2002 and number 49 on the Top 100 albums of all time...
saw the light of day in 2002, featuring a heavier sound than all the group's previous works. It charted in many European countries and remains one of the top-selling Porcupine Tree albums by now; it was also their first record to be released in 5.1 Surround Sound
5.1 surround sound
5.1 is the common name for six channel surround sound multichannel audio systems. 5.1 is now the most commonly used layout in both commercial cinemas and home theaters. It uses five full bandwidth channels and one low frequency enhancement channel . Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II, DTS, and...
, in a special edition of 2004 that shortly after won the "Best Made-For-Surround Title" award for the Surround Music Awards 2004. Another two years elapsed before its follow-up, Deadwing
Deadwing
American edition10. "Shesmovedon " – 4:59DVD-A edition10. "Revenant" – 3:04 11. "Mother and Child Divided" – 4:59 12. "Half-Light" – 6:20 13. "Shesmovedon " - 4:59 LP edition...
, an ambitious and very cohesive record inspired by a film script by Steven Wilson and his friend Mike Bennion, was released in May 2005. This became the first Porcupine Tree album to chart the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
, entering at #132. The album was prizewinning for the "Album of the Year" award on the Classic Rock
Classic Rock (magazine)
Classic Rock is a British magazine dedicated to the radio format of classic rock, published by Future Publishing, who are also responsible for its "sister" publication Metal Hammer. Although firmly focusing on key bands from the 1960s through early 1990s, it also includes articles and reviews of...
magazine awards and its surround version received the "Best Made-For-Surround Title" once again.
Steven Wilson started writing Porcupine Tree's next album in early 2006 in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, alongside work on the second album for his side-project Blackfield
Blackfield
Blackfield is a collaboratory musical group between Porcupine Tree founder and lead singer Steven Wilson and Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen.-Formation, self-titled debut :...
. Writing sessions finished in London, UK, in June 2006, then in August of the same year, the band released their first live DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, titled Arriving Somewhere... and started a tour between September and November to promote it, during which the first half of each show was made up of all-new material. When the tour concluded the band went to studio and finished recording and mastering and added the last touches to the album. In early January 2007, the band revealed the album title was going to be Fear of a Blank Planet
Fear of a Blank Planet
Fear of a Blank Planet is the ninth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree and their best selling . Released by Roadrunner on 16 April 2007 in the UK and Europe, 24 April 2007 in the United States through Atlantic, 25 April 2007 in Japan on WHD and 1 May 2007 in Canada by WEA...
(a deliberate reference to Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet
Fear of a Black Planet
Fear of a Black Planet is the third studio album by American hip hop group Public Enemy, released April 10, 1990, on Def Jam Recordings and Columbia Records. Production for the album was handled by the group's production team The Bomb Squad, who expanded on the dense, sample-layered sound of the...
), and the concept was influenced by the Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis is an American novelist and short story writer. His works have been translated into 27 different languages. He was regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney...
novel Lunar Park
Lunar Park
Lunar Park is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis with elements of faux autobiography and pastiche. It was released by Knopf on August 16, 2005. It is notable for being the first book written by Ellis to use past tense narrative.-Plot summary:...
. The album hit the shops on 16 April 2007 in Europe and April 24 in USA. The lyrics revolve around common 21st Century issues such as technology alienation, teen violence, prescription drugs, attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
.
Fear of a Blank Planet resulted in the most successful album to date in terms of market and sales, and also received the most favourable reviews of the band's whole career. It entered the Billboard 200 at #59, and charted in almost all European countries, peaking at #31 in the UK. It was nominated for a US Grammy, and won several polls as the best album of the year (e.g. Classic Rock
Classic Rock (magazine)
Classic Rock is a British magazine dedicated to the radio format of classic rock, published by Future Publishing, who are also responsible for its "sister" publication Metal Hammer. Although firmly focusing on key bands from the 1960s through early 1990s, it also includes articles and reviews of...
magazine, Aardshock, The Netherlands). In July 2007 the Nil Recurring EP was released, containing other material that hadn't made it onto the album for one reason or another.
At a European show in August 2008, Wilson said that Porcupine Tree was beginning work on material for their next album with an eye toward a release in 2009. Consisting of one long 55 minute song along with 4 shorter songs on the second disc, The Incident
The Incident (album)
The Incident is the tenth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. It was released on September 14, 2009 by Roadrunner Records. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album and reached the Top 25 on both the US and UK album charts.-History:The band...
was released on September 14, 2009.
The Incident is a double CD set containing the self-titled 55 minute song cycle on disc 1. It has received significant attention and media coverage, and achieved for the band their highest chart positions to date, reaching 5 in The Netherlands, 9 in Germany, 23 in the UK, and 25 on the Billboard 200 in the USA. The subsequent tour of the US and Europe highlighted a large increase in the band's following, with many shows sold out. The single from The Incident, "Time Flies" was available as the free download from Itunes for one week in October 2009. A new DVD release is expected in Spring 2010, and a preview appeared on the band's website in April 2010.
No-Man
No-Man is Wilson's long term collaboration with singer and songwriter Tim BownessTim Bowness
Tim Bowness is a singer/songwriter primarily known for his work as part of the band No-Man, a long-term project formed in 1987 with Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson.-Music career:...
. Influenced by everything from ambient music to hip-hop, their early singles and albums were a mixture of dance beats and lush orchestrations. However, after a few years the duo started to create more textural and experimental music, most comparable with later Talk Talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk were an English musical group, active from 1981 to 1991. The group had a string of international hit singles including "Today", "Talk Talk", "It's My Life", "Such a Shame", "Dum Dum Girl", "Life's What You Make It" and "Living in Another World"....
. Beginning with Flowermouth
Flowermouth
Flowermouth is the second studio album by British duo No-Man, released on April, 1994 on the One Little Indian Records label, and subsequently reissued on September, 1999 by 3rd. Stone Ltd, and in a deluxe format by Snapper Music in February 2005....
in 1994, they have worked with a very wide palette of sounds, and many guest musicians, blending balladry with both acoustic and electronic sounds. No-Man was the first Wilson project to achieve any degree of success, signing with UK independent label One Little Indian (the label of Björk
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...
, The Shamen
The Shamen
The Shamen were an experimental electronic music band, from 1985–1999, initially formed in Aberdeen, Scotland, as a psychedelic-influenced indie rock act. The founding members are Colin Angus , Derek McKenzie and Keith McKenzie...
and Skunk Anansie
Skunk Anansie
Skunk Anansie is an English rock band whose members include Skin , Cass , Ace and Mark Richardson .Skunk Anansie formed in March 1994, disbanded in 2001 and reformed in 2009...
among others), and releasing a string of critically acclaimed singles. The band remains an ongoing, predominantly studio-based project and continues to produce material, although it has never achieved the same level of commercial success as Porcupine Tree.
I.E.M.
In 1996 came the first in a series of albums by I.E.M. (The Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, a name which had also been considered for Porcupine Tree in its infancy), dedicated to exploring Wilson's love of krautrockKrautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
and experimental rock music. Initially Wilson had planned for the project to be anonymous, but then label Delerium Records published a song on their Pick N Mix compilation with the composition credited to "Steven Wilson" and so attempts to pass off the project in this way were abandoned. The project released 2 more albums Arcadia Son
Arcadia Son
Arcadia Son is the second album from Steven Wilson's side project, Incredible Expanding Mindfuck. The original vinyl edition was limited to 500 copies and released in May 2001 on the Gates of Dawn record label...
, and IEM Have Come For Your Children, both in 2001. A box set of 4 CDs, consisting of everything Wilson recorded under the name - billed as "an homage and a final farewell to I.E.M." - was released in June 2010.
Bass Communion
In 1998 Wilson launched another solo project Bass Communion, dedicated to recordings in an ambientAmbient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
, drone
Drone music
Drone music is a minimalist musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics...
, and/or electronic vein. The atmosphere of the music has tended towards the dark and melancholic, but expressed with an almost Zen-like beauty. More recently Wilson has also started working with a guitar and laptop configuration to create fuzzy power drones. So far there have been several full length Bass Communion CDs, vinyl LPs, and singles, many of them issued in handmade or limited editions (which sell out very quickly) in elaborate packaging. Bass Communion has collaborated with many leading experimental musicians such as Muslimgauze
Muslimgauze
Muslimgauze was a music project of Bryn Jones , a prolific British ethnic electronica and experimental musician, influenced by conflicts in the Muslim world with an emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...
, Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
, Vidna Obmana
Vidna Obmana
Vidna Obmana is a pseudonym used by Belgian composer and ambient musician Dirk Serries. The name Vidna Obmana, a phrase in Serbian, literally translates to "optical illusion" and was chosen by Serries because he felt it accurately described the music...
(on the ongoing Continuum
Continuum (music project)
Continuum is a collaborative ambient and drone music project between Bass Communion and Dirk Serries...
project), Jonathan Coleclough, Colin Potter, Andrew Liles
Andrew Liles
Andrew Liles is a UK based sound artist and multi-instrumentalist. He has a vast output of recordings that he has released since the mid-1980s, covering a variety of styles as experimental music, dark ambient music, progressive rock and even hints at hard rock....
, and several others.
Blackfield
In 2001 Wilson met and began to collaborate with Israeli rockRock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
star Aviv Geffen
Aviv Geffen
Aviv Geffen is an Israeli rock musician, singer, songwriter, producer, keyboardist and guitarist. He is the son of writer and poet Yehonatan Geffen and Nurit Makover, brother of actress Shira Geffen, and an alumnus of Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music.Geffen was and is extremely popular...
, with whom he created the band Blackfield
Blackfield
Blackfield is a collaboratory musical group between Porcupine Tree founder and lead singer Steven Wilson and Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen.-Formation, self-titled debut :...
. Since then the duo have released three highly acclaimed albums of what they refer to as "melodic and melancholic rock". The albums spawned several hits, notably "Blackfield", "Pain" and "Once". The band has toured several times, and a live DVD of their show in New York was released in 2007. A third album, titled "Welcome to my DNA
Welcome to My DNA
-Personnel:Band* Steven Wilson – vocals, guitars, keyboards* Aviv Geffen – vocals, guitars, keyboards* Eran Mitelman – piano, keyboards* Seffy Efrat – bass* Tomer Z – drumsVocals* lead vocals: 1, 4, 5, 8, 10 – Wilson* lead vocals: 2, 9 – Geffen...
" was released on 28 March 2011 with a European and American tour to follow.
Storm Corrosion
In March 2010 Wilson and Mikael ÅkerfeldtMikael Åkerfeldt
Lars Mikael Åkerfeldt is a Swedish musician who achieved fame as the lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter of progressive death metal band Opeth as well as the lead vocalist of death metal band Bloodbath. He was the vocalist and guitarist for the band Sörskogen and the guitarist of the band Steel...
, the front man of Opeth
Opeth
Opeth is a Swedish heavy metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1990. Though the group has been through several personnel changes, singer, guitarist, and songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt has remained Opeth's driving force throughout the years...
decided to work on a new project as a collaboration under the name of Storm Corrosion. the self-titled album is set to be released in April 2012 on Roadrunner Records
Roadrunner Records
Roadrunner Records is an American record label that concentrates primarily on heavy metal bands. It is currently a subsidiary of Warner Music Group.-History:...
. Some part of recordings took its part from Opeths 2011 album Heritage
Heritage (Opeth album)
Heritage is the tenth studio album by Swedish progressive metal band Opeth, released on 13 September 2011 by Roadrunner Records.The album was recorded in early 2011 at Atlantis studios in Stockholm, Sweden. It was produced by Mikael Åkerfeldt, engineered by Janne Hansson and mixed by Steven Wilson...
and Steven's 2011 album Grace for Drowning.
Cover Versions
Between 2003 and 2010 Wilson released a series of six two-track CD singles under his own name, each one featuring a cover version and an original Steven Wilson song. The choice of covers is unpredictable, featuring songs by Canadian singer Alanis MorissetteAlanis Morissette
Alanis Nadine Morissette is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer, and actress. She has won 16 Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards, was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and also shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination...
, Swedish pop group Abba
Abba
ABBA is the name of a former Swedish pop music group.Abba may also refer to:* ABBA , a self-titled album by the Swedish pop music group ABBA* "Abba ", a song by Christian pop and rock artist, Rebecca St...
, UK rock band The Cure
The Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member...
, Scottish songwriter Momus
Momus (artist)
Nick Currie , more popularly known under the artist name Momus , is a songwriter, blogger and former journalist for Wired...
, Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
, and Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
.
Separate from the Cover Versions series, Wilson has also contributed a cover version of the Cardiacs
Cardiacs
Cardiacs are an English alternative rock/psychedelic pop band formed in 1977 and led by Tim Smith. Noted for their complex, varied and intense compositional style and for their eccentric, theatrical stage shows, they have been hailed as an influence by bands as diverse as Blur, Faith No More and...
song "Stoneage Dinosaurs" to Leader Of The Starry Skies: A Tribute To Tim Smith, Songbook 1
Leader of the Starry Skies: A Tribute to Tim Smith, Songbook 1
Leader of the Starry Skies: A Tribute To Tim Smith, Songbook 1 is a compilation album featuring cover versions of songs by Tim Smith . It was released on CD on December 13, 2010 on the Believers Roast label...
(a fundraising compilation album released in December 2010 to benefit the hospitalised Cardiacs
Cardiacs
Cardiacs are an English alternative rock/psychedelic pop band formed in 1977 and led by Tim Smith. Noted for their complex, varied and intense compositional style and for their eccentric, theatrical stage shows, they have been hailed as an influence by bands as diverse as Blur, Faith No More and...
leader Tim Smith, whom Wilson has cited as a major inspiration spiritually, if not necessarily in style).
Insurgentes
In November 2008 Wilson released his first official solo album, InsurgentesInsurgentes (album)
Insurgentes is the title of the first full-length solo album released by British musician and record producer Steven Wilson, known for being the founder and frontman in psychedelic/progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
, recorded all over the world between January–August, as a double CD plus a DVD-A (limited to 3,000 copies) and a 4 x 10 inch vinyl version (limited to 1,000 copies), both with hardback book featuring the images of acclaimed and long time collaborator Danish photographer Lasse Hoile
Lasse Hoile
Lasse Hoile is an acclaimed artist of mix media, photographer, graphic artist writer, film-maker/director, and cinematographer. Recognized for his unique vintage style intertwined with a modern day twist, Hoile is best known for his close work with Steven Wilson and his projects Porcupine Tree and...
. A standard retail CD version (also including the 5.1 DVD-A) was released on 9 March 2009.
Lasse Hoile's full length feature version of the film based on the recording of the album was premiered at the CPH:DOX international film festival in Copenhagen in November 2009. The film will also be screened at film festivals in Sweden, Germany, Mexico, USA, and Canada. The film is described as part documentary / part surreal road movie. Lasse also directed a video for the song Harmony Korine from the Insurgentes album - the video was a homage to some of Steven and Lasse's favourite European art house films, and has been nominated for Best Cinematography Award and Best Music Video Award at the prestigious Plus Camerimage - International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Awards.
A remix mini album was released in November, featuring remixes of material from Insurgentes by TV on the Radio's David A. Sitek, Dälek, Engineers, Pat Mastelotto
Pat Mastelotto
Pat Mastelotto is a rock drummer who has worked with Mr. Mister and King Crimson, amongst others. For King Crimson he initially formed part of the "double trio" lineup, joining Bill Bruford on drums...
, and Fear Falls Burning.
Grace for Drowning
Wilson's second album, Grace For DrowningGrace for Drowning
Reception for the album has been generally positive. Ben Bland of Steroboard wrote positively of the album, stating "For a work so defiantly widescreen in its intentions as this, it is truly remarkable that there is nothing that could, or rather should, be accused of being filler or being over the...
, was released in September 2011 in CD, vinyl and blu-ray formats. It is a double album, with the individual parts named Deform to Form a Star and Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye. He also announced his first solo tour, in Europe and North America, to promote his solo albums. The tour will take place in October and November 2011 and will contain songs from both Insurgentes and Grace for Drowning.
Current activity
Steven has released his latest solo album in September 2011. It came in the form of two separate albums packaged together, titled Deform To Form A Star and Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye. The two separate albums named above are gathered under the name Grace For DrowningGrace for Drowning
Reception for the album has been generally positive. Ben Bland of Steroboard wrote positively of the album, stating "For a work so defiantly widescreen in its intentions as this, it is truly remarkable that there is nothing that could, or rather should, be accused of being filler or being over the...
. The website currently holds much information about the new album. Steven is also recording a collaborative album with Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
band Opeth
Opeth
Opeth is a Swedish heavy metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1990. Though the group has been through several personnel changes, singer, guitarist, and songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt has remained Opeth's driving force throughout the years...
's singer, guitarist and composer Mikael Åkerfeldt
Mikael Åkerfeldt
Lars Mikael Åkerfeldt is a Swedish musician who achieved fame as the lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter of progressive death metal band Opeth as well as the lead vocalist of death metal band Bloodbath. He was the vocalist and guitarist for the band Sörskogen and the guitarist of the band Steel...
tentatively titled Storm Corrosion.
On March 2011, Steven revealed on his Facebook account, that:
"Firstly, we finished mixing the incredible new Opeth album a few days ago, [sic] Mikael and I also took the opportunity while he was here to finish writing our collaboration album - there's still a lot of recording work to do, but this should definitely be out in early 2012."
Steven has also worked on and off on a new Bass Communion album called Cenotaph.
Collaborations
He producedRecord producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
and contributed backing vocals
Backing vocalist
A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...
, guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
and keyboards
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
for Opeth
Opeth
Opeth is a Swedish heavy metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1990. Though the group has been through several personnel changes, singer, guitarist, and songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt has remained Opeth's driving force throughout the years...
on the albums Blackwater Park
Blackwater Park
Blackwater Park is the fifth studio album by Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth. It was released on February 27, 2001 through Music for Nations and Koch Records...
, Deliverance, and Damnation
Damnation (album)
-Notes:# The vocal melody in the chorus of "To Rid the Disease" is borrowed from a track recorded by Mikael Åkerfeldt's sideproject Sörskogen, "Mordet i Grottan".-Opeth:* Mikael Åkerfeldt – vocals, guitar; producing and engineering...
. In addition to this, he has collaborated on many projects with Belgian experimental musician Dirk Serries of Vidna Obmana
Vidna Obmana
Vidna Obmana is a pseudonym used by Belgian composer and ambient musician Dirk Serries. The name Vidna Obmana, a phrase in Serbian, literally translates to "optical illusion" and was chosen by Serries because he felt it accurately described the music...
and Fear Falls Burning, most notably on their collaboration project Continuum
Continuum (music project)
Continuum is a collaborative ambient and drone music project between Bass Communion and Dirk Serries...
which has so far produced two albums. Wilson is also featured on a Fovea Hex EP "Allure" (Part 3 of the "Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent" trilogy of EP's) on bass guitar. This EP was released in April 2007 through Die-Stadt Musik.
Steven Wilson has also worked with OSI
OSI (band)
OSI is an American progressive rock band, originally formed by Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos in 2002. Chroma Key keyboardist and vocalist Kevin Moore is the only other full-time member of the band...
, Marillion
Marillion
Marillion are a British rock band, formed in Aylesbury, England in 1979. Their recorded studio output comprises sixteen albums generally regarded in two distinct eras, delineated by the departure of original vocalist & frontman Fish in late 1988, and the subsequent arrival of replacement Steve...
, JBK, Orphaned Land
Orphaned Land
Orphaned Land is an Israeli progressive metal band, formed in 1991, that combines Death/doom, Jewish and Arabic influences.- History :In 1992, the band changed its name from the original Resurrection to Orphaned Land....
, Paatos
Paatos
Paatos is a Swedish rock band that was formed in 1999 by Reine Fiske and Stefan Dimle , Petronella Nettermalm, Ricard Nettermalm and Johan Wallen...
, Theo Travis
Theo Travis
Theo Travis is a British saxophonist and flautist.Travis received his degree in flute and saxophone from the University of Manchester and has worked among others with Robert Fripp, Gong, Porcupine Tree, The Tangent, Bill Nelson, Bass Communion, No-Man, Steven Wilson, David Sylvian, Harold Budd,...
, Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, Fish
Fish (singer)
Derek William Dick, better known as Fish, is a Scottish progressive rock singer, lyricist and occasional actor, best known as the former lead singer of Marillion.-Biography:...
, Cipher
Cipher
In cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...
and Anja Garbarek
Anja Garbarek
Anja Garbarek is a Norwegian singer-songwriter of mixed Norwegian and Polish descent. She is the daughter of the Norwegian jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek and grew up around Oslo. She received the Spellemannsprisen in 2001 for her album Smiling & Waving in the open class category. She is married to...
performing songwriting duties as well as performing musically. Most recently, Wilson is featured on the Pendulum
Pendulum (band)
Pendulum is an Australian drum and bass and electronic rock band founded in 2002 in Perth by Rob Swire, Gareth McGrillen, and Paul Harding.Swire and McGrillen were members of the rock band known as Xygen. After hearing Konflict's "Messiah" at a club, they were inspired to enter into the drum and...
album "Immersion
Immersion (album)
Immersion is the third studio album from Australian electronic rock/drum & bass band Pendulum. The album was announced in early 2009, with the name being confirmed in December 2009. The album was released 21 May 2010 in Australia and Ireland, and 24 May for the rest of the world, followed by a UK...
", with his vocals featuring on "The Fountain". He made a guest appearance on Dream Theater
Dream Theater
Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung, and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of their studies to further concentrate on the band that would...
's 2007 album, Systematic Chaos
Systematic Chaos
Systematic Chaos is the ninth studio album by American progressive metal band Dream Theater. Released on June 4, 2007 in the United Kingdom and June 5, 2007 in the United States, Systematic Chaos was the band's first release through Roadrunner Records, which was sold to their previous label...
on the song "Repentance", as one of several musical guests recorded apologizing to important people in their lives for wrongdoings in the past.
Wilson did an interview with German musician and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze is a German electronic music composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried. He was briefly a member of the electronic bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before launching a solo career consisting of more than 60 albums released across five decades.-1970s:In...
. Schulze was an important figure of the Krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
movement. This interview is featured as bonus material in Schulze's Live DVD, Rheingold.
The most recent Anathema
Anathema (band)
Anathema are an English band from Liverpool primarily known for their ever evolving sound. Beginning as pioneers of the death/doom metal sub-genre, their later albums have been associated with genres such as alternative rock, progressive rock, art rock, new prog, and post-rock.-History:Anathema...
album, We're Here Because We're Here, was mixed by Wilson in a period beginning January 2010 and he is thanked in the album liner notes. A current ongoing project for Wilson is remixing the back catalogue of King Crimson
King Crimson
King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
from 1969 to 1984 into MLP (Meridian Lossless Packaging) 5.1 and new stereo mixes. The first three new editions were issued in October 2009, with more emerging in batches over the coming years.
Recording studio
- PowerMac G5 running Logic 7
- DigidesignDigidesignAvid Audio is an American digital audio technology company. It was founded in 1984 by Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooks. The company began as a project to raise money for the founders' band, selling EPROM chips for drum machines. It is a subsidiary of Avid Technology, and during 2010 the Digidesign...
MixMixing consoleIn professional audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a sound board, mixing desk, or mixer is an electronic device for combining , routing, and changing the level, timbre and/or dynamics of audio signals. A mixer can mix analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer...
TDMTime-division multiplexingTime-division multiplexing is a type of digital multiplexing in which two or more bit streams or signals are transferred apparently simultaneously as sub-channels in one communication channel, but are physically taking turns on the channel. The time domain is divided into several recurrent...
system - AppleApple ComputerApple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
EXS24 virtualVirtualThe term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real....
samplerSampler (musical instrument)A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or... - Apogee Trak2 MicMicrophoneA microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
Pre AmpPreamplifierA preamplifier is an electronic amplifier that prepares a small electrical signal for further amplification or processing. A preamplifier is often placed close to the sensor to reduce the effects of noise and interference. It is used to boost the signal strength to drive the cable to the main...
/A-D converter - Neumann U87 microphone
- Line 6 Pod + DL4 Delay
- Gibson Les PaulGibson Les PaulThe Gibson Les Paul was the result of a design collaboration between Gibson Guitar Corporation and the late jazz guitarist and electronics inventor Les Paul. In 1950, with the introduction of the Fender Telecaster to the musical market, electric guitars became a public craze. In reaction, Gibson...
- Paul Reed SmithPRS GuitarsPRS Guitars is an American guitar manufacturer headquartered in Stevensville, Maryland. PRS Guitars was founded by guitarist and luthier Paul Reed Smith in 1985. The company is one of the leading manufacturers of high-end electric guitars.-Materials:...
guitars - Fender Telecaster
On stage
- Visionary Instruments VG2
- AlumiSonic Ultra 1100 guitar
- Various Paul Reed SmithPRS GuitarsPRS Guitars is an American guitar manufacturer headquartered in Stevensville, Maryland. PRS Guitars was founded by guitarist and luthier Paul Reed Smith in 1985. The company is one of the leading manufacturers of high-end electric guitars.-Materials:...
guitars, including Custom 22, Singlecut, Modern Eagle and Mike Mushok Baritone models - BabiczBabicz GuitarsBabicz Guitars is a manufacturer of high-end acoustic guitars and electric guitars and a producer of innovative and licensable guitar technology...
Acoustic guitars and Octane Acoustic/Electric - Gibson Les PaulGibson Les PaulThe Gibson Les Paul was the result of a design collaboration between Gibson Guitar Corporation and the late jazz guitarist and electronics inventor Les Paul. In 1950, with the introduction of the Fender Telecaster to the musical market, electric guitars became a public craze. In reaction, Gibson...
- Wah-wahWah-wah pedalA wah-wah pedal is a type of guitar effects pedal that alters the tone of the signal to create a distinctive effect, mimicking the human voice...
and volumeLoudnessLoudness is the quality of a sound that is primarily a psychological correlate of physical strength . More formally, it is defined as "that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which sounds can be ordered on a scale extending from quiet to loud."Loudness, a subjective measure, is often...
pedals - Bad Cat two tone distortion
- BOSSBoss CorporationBoss is a manufacturer of effects pedals for electric guitar and bass guitar. It is a division of the Roland Corporation, a Japanese manufacturer that specializes in musical equipment and accessories...
distortion - Carl Martin compressorAudio level compressionDynamic range compression, also called DRC or simply compression reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or "compressing" an audio signal's dynamic range...
- TC G-System effects processorAudio signal processingAudio signal processing, sometimes referred to as audio processing, is the intentional alteration of auditory signals, or sound. As audio signals may be electronically represented in either digital or analog format, signal processing may occur in either domain...
- Bad Cat Lynx Head amplifierAmplifierGenerally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
with 4x12 matching Cabinet - Bad Cat Hot Cat amplifierAmplifierGenerally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
with 4x12 matching Cabinet - ESPESP Guitars, located in North Hollywood, California, is an American-based, Japanese-owned manufacturer of electric guitars and basses.- History :In 1975, Hisatake Shibuya opened a shop called Electric Sound Products in Tokyo. It provided custom replacement parts for guitars. In 1976, ESP gained a reputation...
Stratocaster (used onstage up until the In AbsentiaIn AbsentiaIn Absentia is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. It was their first release on a major record label, Lava Records. It is Metal Storm's number 3 of the Top 20 albums of 2002 and number 49 on the Top 100 albums of all time...
tour, where he switched to Paul Reed SmithPaul Reed SmithPaul Reed Smith , is a luthier and the founder and owner of PRS Guitars.Smith is originally from Bowie, Maryland. He made his first guitar while at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and continued to build guitars after he finished college, making them one at a time, one a month...
guitars.) - BOSSBoss CorporationBoss is a manufacturer of effects pedals for electric guitar and bass guitar. It is a division of the Roland Corporation, a Japanese manufacturer that specializes in musical equipment and accessories...
DD-20 delay and RT-20 rotary twin pedal effects - GigRig "Midi 8" Foot Controller
Barefoot performance
For live shows Wilson plays with bare feet. This particular custom goes back to his early childhood, where he remembers: "I always had a problem wearing shoes and I've always gone around with bare feet". He also adds that another factor on performing barefoot is the advantage it gives in operating his diverse guitar pedals.Wilson:
"I’ve stepped on nails, screws, drawing pins, stubbed my toe, I’ve come off stage with blood just coming out… I mean, I’ve had it all mate, but to be honest, nothing's going to stop me."
He often uses a carpet on stage to keep his feet protected, which is often seen on the Anesthetize live DVD.
Solo discography
Studio- 2008 - InsurgentesInsurgentes (album)Insurgentes is the title of the first full-length solo album released by British musician and record producer Steven Wilson, known for being the founder and frontman in psychedelic/progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
- 2011 - Grace for DrowningGrace for DrowningReception for the album has been generally positive. Ben Bland of Steroboard wrote positively of the album, stating "For a work so defiantly widescreen in its intentions as this, it is truly remarkable that there is nothing that could, or rather should, be accused of being filler or being over the...
Remix albums
- 2009 - NSRGNTS RMXSNSRGNTS RMXSNSRGNTS RMXS , is the name of a remix EP released by British musician, songwriter and music producer Steven Wilson, comprising remixes of his first full-length studio album, Insurgentes. The EP was released in CD and Vinyl formats with the tracklist varying to each one...
External links
- Steven Wilson Headquarters
- Steven Wilson's Complete Discography
- Chemical Harvest - French Porcupine Tree & Steven Wilson Site
- Steven Wilson at last.fm
- The Seaweed Farm - Steven Wilson related news
- Aural Innovations Review/Interview
- Steven Wilson French Site - Steven Wilson French Site (since 2008)