Steven John Wilson's Blog

Happy new year to you all! First and foremost a big thank you to everyone that enjoyed the Porcupine Tree ‘Closure / Continuation’ album / shows, and my book ‘Limited Edition of One’ during the past year.

Coming in 2023 will be my new album, a 10 track 65 minute musical journey that’s kinda hard to describe, but suffice to say it’s different again, not to mention totally pretentious (in a good way!) It will be released by Virgin Records, more news soon. Meanwhile the (likely final) PT shows will be a handful of festival appearances over the Summer, check the band’s channels for more info.

Lots more exciting stuff (at least to me) happening, but for now I’ll leave you with my very best wishes for the year ahead, I hope it will be a wonderful one for you.

S x

PS – my personal favourite album of 2022 is The Smile ‘A Light For Attracting Attention’, with new albums by Tears For Fears, Arcade Fire and Arooj Aftab not too far behind. This with the usual caveat that I only heard a tiny percentage of all the albums released over the last 12 months, so please feel free to recommend others to me in the comments below, or movies and books for that matter. Personal recommendation is still how I discover most things. Best live event: the Abba Voyage show – for once the reviews are not hyperbole, so if you like Abba even just a tiny bit, go see it!

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‘Intrigue’ is my personally curated attempt to redress the balance, and to perhaps introduce any 80’s sceptics out there to the idea that conceptual thinking and ambition didn’t suddenly evaporate after ’77… ambitious, weird and thrilling music was all around you in the ’80s – if you looked in the right places.

Featuring 58 tracks, the collection explores the creativity, experimentation and progressive spirit of alternative British music from 1979-1989. Artists include Wire, XTC, The Stranglers, Ultravox, The Durutti Column, Cocteau Twins, Kate Bush, Tears for Fears, and many more.

Available to pre-order now: https://steven-wilson.lnk.to/intrigue

Released 10th February 2023.

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My long term partner in No-Man Tim Bowness releases his seventh solo album Butterfly Mind this Friday, and it’s fab, up there with my favourites among Tim’s amazing growing body of solo work. I had the privilege to once again mix the album, but it’s also great to see the return of former No-Man violinist Ben Coleman, marking his first studio work with Tim in nearly three decades! There are lots of other familiar guests on the album, but as ever this is very much about Tim’s voice and unique approach to songwriting.

Order it now from: https://burningshed.com/tag/Butterfly%20Mind

All pre-orders sold through Burning Shed come with an exclusive fridge magnet and signed postcard.

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The new Porcupine Tree album Closure / Continuation is out now! Time will tell, but right now I feel it probably is in the top three best records that we’ve ever made, alongside In Absentia and Fear of a Blank Planet.

It’s pure Porcupine Tree but at the same time it sounds fresh, there’s a lot of space there. It feels like a truly collaborative effort, finally I feel able to let PT to be a true band unit. There’s a lot more of Gav and Richard’s personality and craft coming through.

The cover was designed by The Designer’s Republic, who I’ve been a big fan of since their work with classic 90’s electronic artists like Aphex Twin and Autechre. The cover concept is about the idea that people don’t really engage with anything for more than a few moments anyway, and that branding is now the most important thing, something I also explored on The Future Bites. A series of images that are unconnected but which all share the same uniform branding.

Buy/Stream Closure / Continuation

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My book Limited Edition of One will be published by Little Brown on 7th April, and to promote it I will be making several personal appearances at UK book stores (and one record shop). Two of these events will also involve a conversation / Q+A. It’s crazy to think these will be my first appearances in public for 3 years, so please do come along if you can, it would be great to see you.

TUESDAY 5th APRIL – Blackwell’s, Manchester from 6.45pm (book signing)
THURSDAY 7th APRIL – Rough Trade East, London, E1 from 6.30pm (In conversation with Michael Hann, followed by book signing)
SATURDAY 9th APRIL – Revolution Records, Stevenage from 1pm (book signing…and record shopping!)
SUNDAY 10th APRIL – Blackwell’s, Oxford from 2pm (In conversation with Mick Wall, followed by book signing)

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I’m happy to report that Porcupine Tree will return to North and South America in September/October 2022 for a limited series of performances in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Chile, see list of dates below – these will likely be the only shows on the Closure/Continuation tour, so my apologies if we aren’t making it to a city near you.

You can also listen to a second track from the forthcoming new album now. ‘Of the New Day’ is a song of rebirth, emerging from darkness. In many ways it’s a typically atypical Porcupine Tree ballad, but I love how the time signature is constantly changing, from bars of regular 4/4 time to 3/4, 5/4, 6/4 and 11/4. I think it’s something PT can do well, to create a song which has complexity to it, but in a way that sounds natural and hopefully not simply complicated for the sake of it. I hope you enjoy! Listen below:

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My book, ‘Limited Edition of One’, will be published by Little, Brown on 7th April and it is now available to pre-order in several editions, including a deluxe version and a super-deluxe “artist edition” of only 125 copies: https://linktr.ee/LimitedEditionOfOne

The book was written under a “no rules” philosophy with the collaboration of legendary rock biographer Mick Wall. In addition to containing autobiographical material, it has a lot on my broader ideas about music, as well as list and discussion chapters on the kind of things I get asked about a lot (favourite films, songs, record shops…etc), and some that I don’t. Also among its pages are photos from my personal archives, and a short story (which might be my favourite part). I’ve chosen to focus on the stuff that people really don’t know about me, rather than what is well known and documented by now. The tongue-in-cheek subtitle ‘How to Succeed in the Music Industry Without Being Part of the Mainstream’ perhaps tells you more about what to expect.

The limited deluxe version features a second volume of supplementary material and photos, plus a CD with “audio illustrations” of some of the things I talk about in the book, including mercifully brief extracts of my school bands, early attempts at electronic music, and unreleased demos from the beginnings of No-Man and Porcupine Tree among others. Although some of its musical merits might be debatable, my intention is to put you there in the room when I’m talking about these early musical endeavours.

Finally the super deluxe “artist edition” comes in special packaging and also includes a sheet of handwritten lyrics.

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A special blu-ray edition of the forthcoming Tears for Fears album The Tipping Point is being exclusively released through UK website SuperDeluxeEdition.com, in collaboration with the band and Concord Records – This disc features my Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround sound mixes of the album, mixes which will not be released on any other physical format. The pressing is limited to 2,000 copies, sure to sell out very fast. Pre-order here: https://bit.ly/3HQuFsU

This blu-ray edition has come about because both myself and Paul Sinclair at SDE believe there is still a market for physical product when it comes to surround sound (or spatial audio mixes) and Concord Records and Tears For Fears share our enthusiasm, in this regard. We hope that if the disc does well it could lead to other projects of this nature for people who feel the same.

The album by the way, is absolutely brilliant, a total classic Tears For Fears record. Release date is 25th Feb.

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Happy new year from Wilson HQ!

Who could have predicted that as another year rolls around, anything approaching normal life would continue to be in a holding pattern. In my own universe it’s been two years since I finished recording THE FUTURE BITES and one year since it was finally released into the vacuum of the pandemic. It’s been great to see it receiving end of year accolades nevertheless, the 2 Recording Academy / GRAMMYs nominations especially were an unexpectedly pleasant surprise.

Normally, I would have been highly visible promoting and touring a new record throughout the year, but unable to do so I instead disappeared into my studio and busied myself working on some big projects. The first of these is a book, Limited Edition of One, to be published by Little Brown in late March. It was written under a “no rules” philosophy with the collaboration of rock biographer Mick Wall. As well as containing some autobiographical material, it also has a lot on my ideas about music and the way things have changed in my time as a professional, lists, photos from my personal archives, conversation transcripts and even some fictional elements. As there have already been a few books written about me and/or Porcupine Tree in recent years, I’ve chosen to focus on the stuff that people really don’t know about me. As you can probably guess, there will also be a special limited deluxe version. This will feature a second volume of supplementary material and photos, plus a 70 minute CD with “audio illustrations” of some of the things I talk about in the book, including mercifully brief extracts of my school bands, and early unreleased demos by No-Man and Porcupine Tree, among others. Although much of its musical merits might be questionable, my hope is to put you there “in the room” when I’m talking about my early musical endeavours.

The other major 2022 release will be the new Porcupine Tree album Closure / Continuation. The album was completed during lockdown, entirely written, produced and performed by just myself, Gavin and Richard, and will be issued in June on Music For Nations / Sony. I think it’s fair to say that it sounds quintessentially like a Porcupine Tree album, albeit with the benefit of all that the three of us have been doing during the 12 years since the last PT album. Like our best albums, it’s probably the kind you need to listen to several times before it sinks in. You can hear “Harridan” from the album now, with 2 more songs to be previewed online between now and the album’s release. There will also be a select run of concerts towards the end of the year. European shows are on sale now with North and South American shows to be announced soon. There are no plans for any future Porcupine Tree concerts beyond these (though never say never.)

The third major project I’ve been working on is my next album, which I hope to release in mid-2023, a big conceptual thing partly based on a short story that appears in my book. A long way to go yet, but I’m excited about it and where the music is taking me, something completely different again with collaborators both old and new. I remain committed to the idea of building a body of work where every album has its own personality and unique place in the catalogue.

As always, I did my fair share of mixing work for other artists in 2021, including some very unexpected high profile ones, but most of these projects have been held over until 2022 due to a combination of the pandemic and the ever increasing delays in manufacturing vinyl. In terms of surround it was definitely a year when invitations to mix in 5.1 gave way to requests for Dolby Atmos. I’m also in the process of curating a box set which will focus on how the progressive spirit of the 70’s continued to inspire independent and alternative music throughout the 80’s, something which has allowed me to revisit a lot of my favourite post-punk and art pop/rock music from the decade when I was a music-crazed teenager. Everything from Wire and Joy Division to Cardiacs and Cocteau Twins will feature. More news on that soon.

For those that follow and enjoy my podcast with Tim Bowness, The Album Years, we promise to try to be a bit more prolific with it in 2022!

Finally, if you haven’t already, please do check out the collaboration song with my friend Paul Draper called “Omega Man”, a vibey piece of lockdown themed art-pop. As well as featuring on his new album Cult Leader Tactics, it’s being released as an exclusive indie-stores only 7 inch single in extended form.

That’s all for now. Let us all hope for a better connected human race in 2022, despite the Omicron spectre of recent weeks. In the meantime I wish you all the very best for the year to come!

SW, 1st January 2022

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I’m happy to have collaborated with my friend Paul Draper on his new single ‘Omega Man’, a song we co-wrote and performed together during lockdown, and which will appear on his forthcoming album for Kscope, Cult Leader Tactics.

Check out the full video below.

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