Steven Wilson

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Steven Wilson at a Blackfield concert
Wilson at Strawberry Fayre in Cambridge (1997)
Steven Wilson at the ZMF 2018 in Freiburg

Steven John Wilson (born November 3, 1967 in Kingston upon Thames , London ) is a British musician . Wilson plays several instruments and is an autodidact learned producer , sound engineer , guitarist and keyboardist .

Wilson is best known as the founder, singer, guitarist and songwriter of the progressive rock band Porcupine Tree , whose albums Deadwing (2005) and Fear of a Blank Planet (2007) were named album of the year by Classic Rock Magazine Involved in many other bands and projects that go well beyond the genre boundaries of progressive rock . Among others, the Bass Communion ( Ambient , Drone ), Blackfield ( Pop-Rock ), No-Man (Art-Pop) and Incredible Expanding Mindfuck ( Krautrock , often abbreviated to IEM). He also has a solo career under his own name.

As a producer , his references include Opeth , Orphaned Land , Fish , Anja Garbarek , Marillion , King Crimson , Emerson Lake & Palmer and Paatos, among others . His own label, Headphone Dust, publishes small editions of sound carriers.

biography

Steven Wilson with Aviv Geffen during the 2004 Blackfield European tour

Wilson began composing his own music at the age of eleven. Little by little he expanded his private studio No Man's Land , learned guitar and keyboard and produced a number of tapes. Initially, the band No-Man with Tim Bowness was his most successful project, for which he received his first record deal. Porcupine Tree , actually a solo project of Wilson's, came about on a whim , for which he invented a biography that tells of the lost tapes of a legendary band. These "recovered" tapes fell into the hands of Richard Allen - then at Delerium Records - and Wilson got a second record deal. Meanwhile Porcupine Tree is by far his most successful band. Since 2010, however, she has been on a break, as Wilson devotes himself to his solo career.

Solo work

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Insurgentes
  DE 81 03/20/2009 (1 week)
Grace for Drowning
  DE 22nd 10/14/2011 (2 weeks)
  AT 40 10/14/2011 (1 week)
  CH 54 October 09, 2011 (1 week)
  UK 34 08/10/2011 (1 week)
  US 85 October 15, 2011 (1 week)
Get All You Deserve
  DE 52 October 12, 2012 (1 week)
The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories)
  DE 3 03/15/2013 (4 weeks)
  AT 23 03/15/2013 (1 week)
  CH 62 03.03.2013 (5 weeks)
  UK 28 03/09/2013 (1 week)
  US 57 03/16/2013 (2 weeks)
Drive home
  DE 45 11/08/2013 (1 week)
  UK 68 11/02/2013 (1 week)
Cover version
  DE 37 07/11/2014 (1 week)
Hand. Cannot. Erase.
  DE 3 03/13/2015 (6 weeks)
  AT 12 03/13/2015 (2 weeks)
  CH 17th 03/08/2015 (3 weeks)
  UK 13 03/14/2015 (3 weeks)
  US 39 03/21/2015 (1 week)
Transience
  DE 52 09/10/2015 (2 weeks)
  CH 60 09/25/2016 (1 week)
  UK 59 08/10/2015 (1 week)
4 ½
  DE 7th 01/29/2016 (2 weeks)
  AT 17th 02/05/2016 (2 weeks)
  CH 14th 01/31/2016 (2 weeks)
  UK 21st 02/04/2016 (1 week)
  US 114 02/13/2016 (1 week)
To the bone
  DE 2 08/25/2017 (4 weeks)
  AT 7th 09/01/2017 (4 weeks)
  CH 4th 08/27/2017 (5 weeks)
  UK 3 08/31/2017 (3 weeks)
  US 58 09.09.2017 (1 week)
Home Invasion - In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall
  DE 9 11/09/2018 (6 weeks)
DVDs
Get All You Deserve
  CH 9 10/14/2012 (1 week)
The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories)
  CH 7th 03/17/2013 (1 week)

Cover version

Between 2003 and 2010 a series of six 2-track CD singles was released under its own name. Each CD includes a cover version and a Steven Wilson original song. The selection of cover songs is very different; the CDs include songs by ABBA , Alanis Morissette , Donovan , Momus , Prince and The Cure . As the final CD single, Cover Version VI was released in a limited box with empty spaces for the previous five singles.

In May 2014, all twelve tracks were released as a compilation on a CD.

Insurgentes

First available as a limited deluxe mailorder version in November 2008 , Wilson released Insurgentes in February 2009 , the first album under his own name. It is named after the Avenida de los Insurgentes , the longest main street in Mexico City . With the name Insurgentes (dt. Rebels, insurgents) Wilson alludes to his way of making music and the shaping of his career. Wilson calls it the "most experimental song-based music" he has made to date. He names post-punk shoegazing (à la Joy Division and The Cure ) as the main influences . He also describes it as very drone - and noise- oriented. In 2010 Lasse Hoile released the film of the same name, Insurgentes , which documents the genesis of the album. In addition to Wilson, musicians like Mikael Akerfeldt (Opeth) and Aviv Geffen (Blackfield) have their say.

Grace for Drowning

Grace for Drowning is the comprehensive title of two solo albums, Deform to Form a Star and Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye , which were released together as a double album onSeptember 26, 2011on the independent label Kscope . The organic sound of Grace for Drowning was influenced by Wilson's activity as a sound engineer, as he remixed classic albums by King Crimson or Jethro Tull that inspired him while recording. The album also shows Wilson's departure from the metal-oriented music on Porcupine Tree's last album "The Incident" towards jazzy art rock.

With the release of Grace for Drowning , Steven Wilson started his first solo tour . With tour dates in October and November 2011, material from Grace for Drowning and Insurgentes was played at the concerts . The line-up consisted of Marco Minnemann ( drums ), Nick Beggs ( bass / Chapman stick ), Aziz Ibrahim ( guitar ), Adam Holzman ( keyboards ), Theo Travis ( flute / saxophone ) and Steven Wilson ( vocals , guitars, keyboards) . Gary Husband was originally planned as keyboard player, who had to resign for health reasons.

In April and May 2012 the Grace-for-Drowing tour was continued in a second run with some tour dates in Europe and South America. As a guitarist, Aziz Ibrahim is first replaced in the line-up by Niko Tsonev and later by Guthrie Govan .

The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories)

On March 1, 2013, Wilson's third solo album The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) , which was recorded in Los Angeles with members of the Steven Wilson live band in September and October 2012, was released. Alan Parsons was hired as a sound engineer . Two music videos have been released, The Raven that Refused to Sing and Drive Home . Both of these can be found on the EP Drive Home , released in October 2013 , with which Wilson took the opportunity to release unreleased material and live recordings of The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) .

In March 2013, the Steven Wilson live band went on a European tour with the album. Further concert dates followed in Europe as well as USA / Canada, Mexico, South America, Australia, Great Britain and Israel by the end of November 2013 - including some summer festivals in Germany ( Hurricane / Southside , Loreley), Austria ( Nova Rock ) and the Netherlands (Bospop, De boerderij). Due to further appointment obligations, drummer Marco Minnemann was replaced for the US tour dates by Chad Wackerman (known for his collaboration with Frank Zappa in the 80s).

Hand. Cannot. Erase.

The fourth solo album Hand. Cannot. Erase. was released on February 27, 2015 by the independent label Kscope . The album was accompanied by an extensive tour through Europe, North and Central America and Australia, which lasted until 2016. In October 2015, Transience was released , a compilation of older tracks that was initially only available as a vinyl LP. The album was only released on CD in 2016.

To the bone

In December 2016, the recording work for the studio album To the Bone began in London, with the drum and bass tracks being recorded first. The recordings were completed in mid-February 2017 and mixing began on February 26, 2017. The album was released on August 18, 2017 on the Caroline International label and entered the German charts at number 2 the following week.

Other musical projects

In addition to Porcupine Tree and his solo career, Wilson is part of many other musical projects; u. a. Steven Wilson deals with electronic music and field recording. If one were to name genre names for the projects, it might be: Artrock (No-Man, Blackfield, IEM, Steven Wilson), Ambient / Drone (Bass Communion, Continuum, Steven Wilson), New Age (No-Man). The first project is No-Man, founded in 1987 . Together with singer Tim Bowness, Steven Wilson produces very well arranged music, almost orchestral, influenced by jazz , contemporary music and experimental pop music. Six studio albums, two live albums (most recently "Love and Endings", 2012) and sixteen singles / EPs were produced, which received good reviews. In the mid-90s, Steven Wilson released an album with Krautrock music and classic rock under the name IEM . Further publications followed at the beginning of the 21st century. However, they have not received much attention due to the unpopular musical direction of the songs. Wilson finished the IEM project . Wilson publishes its own ambient and drone music under the names Bass Communion and Continuum , which stylistically does not match the other releases. Wilson released the first albums in the late 1990s. Since then there have been regular publications, the most recent being Cenotaph (2011). The solo project under his own name (see above), to which Wilson is currently paying attention, is very close to the style of Porcupine Tree . As probably the most successful and popular addition to Porcupine Tree is likely Blackfield call. So far, five studio albums have been released (most recently V , 2017) and a live DVD, which were created in collaboration with Aviv Geffen, an Israeli singer / songwriter, and on which mainly calm, melodic and short songs can be heard. In addition, Wilson founded the band Storm Corrosion in 2010 with befriended Opeth singer Mikael Akerfeldt . The duo's self-titled debut album was released in 2012.

Selected discography (studio albums and EPs)

solo

  • 2009: Insurgentes
  • 2009: NSRGNTS RMXS (Remix EP)
  • 2011: Grace for Drowning
    • Volume 1: Deform to Form a Star
    • Volume 2: Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye
  • 2012: Get all you Deserve
  • 2013: The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories)
  • 2013: Drive Home (Video EP)
  • 2014: Cover version
  • 2015: hand. Cannot. Erase.
  • 2015: Transience (vinyl LP)
  • 2016: 4 ½ (EP)
  • 2017: To the Bone
  • 2017: Last Day of June

With porcupine tree

With storm corrosion

With no-man

  • 1993: Loveblows & Lovecries - A Confession
  • 1994: Flowermouth
  • 1996: Wild Opera
  • 2001: Returning Jesus
  • 2003: Together We're Stranger
  • 2008: Schoolyard Ghosts
  • 2019: Love You to Bits

With Blackfield

  • 2004: Blackfield
  • 2007: Blackfield II
  • 2011: Welcome to My DNA
  • 2013: IV
  • 2017: V

As bass communion

  • 1998: Bass Communion I
  • 1999: Bass Communion II
  • 2001: Bass Communion III
  • 2004: Ghosts on Magnetic Tape
  • 2005: Indicates Void
  • 2006: Loss
  • 2008: Pacific Codex
  • 2008: Molotov and Haze
  • 2011: Cenotaph
  • 2017: Sisters Oregon

As Incredible Expanding Mindfuck

  • 1996: IEM
  • 1999: An Escalator to Christmas
  • 2001: Arcadia Son
  • 2001: IEM Have Come for Your Children

literature

  • Porcupine Tree - Stars Die, The Delerium Years: Booklet with a detailed history of the band

Web links

Commons : Steven Wilson  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ↑ Steven Wilson: SW mixes Orphaned Land ( Memento from September 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed December 23, 2015)
  2. ↑ a b Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
  3. ↑ Steven Wilson: Cover Version on CD now available to pre-order (accessed November 2, 2014)
  4. ↑ Steven Wilson - The Gentle Rebel . In: Sysyphus Verlags GmbH (ed.): Eclipsed . April 2009, p. 42-43 .
  5. ↑ innerviews.org: Innerviews: No-Man - Positive momentum (English)
  6. ↑ a b Steven Wilson: Two single albums issued together (accessed May 10, 2011)
  7. ↑ Steven Wilson, Grace for Drowning Announcement (accessed June 14, 2011)
  8. ↑ a b Steven Wilson: Grace for Drowning website (accessed July 19, 2011)
  9. ↑ Steven Wilson: First Solo Tour: Announcement (accessed October 26, 2011)
  10. ↑ Steven Wilson: First Solo Tour: Lineup Change (accessed October 26, 2011)
  11. ↑ Steven Wilson: First Solo Tour: Tour Dates ( Memento from May 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed December 23, 2015)
  12. ↑ a b The Raven That Refused To Sing album announcement. Retrieved December 5, 2012 .
  13. ↑ Steven Wilson: European tour dates for 2013 (announcement) (accessed December 5, 2012)
  14. ↑ Steven Wilson: Tour Dates (accessed November 7, 2014)
  15. ↑ Steven Wilson: Chad Wackerman to replace Marco Minnemann on North / South American Tour (accessed November 7, 2014)
  16. ↑ http://www.laut.de/Steven-Wilson/Alben/Hand.-Cannot.-Erase.-94807
  17. ↑ hand. Cannot. Erase. Tour overview. Retrieved April 11, 2015 .
  18. ↑ hand. Cannot. Erase. Tour overview. Retrieved April 11, 2015 .
  19. ↑ http://stevenwilsonhq.com/sw/recording-drums-and-bass-for-the-new-steven-wilson-album-in-london/
  20. ↑ Instagram post by Steven Wilson • Feb 12, 2017 at 6:20 pm. Retrieved February 27, 2017 .
  21. ↑ Instagram post by Steven Wilson • Feb 26, 2017 at 11:16 am. Retrieved February 27, 2017 .
Porcupine Tree
Chris Maitland


Studio albums

Tarquin's Seaweed Farm • The Nostalgia Factory • On the Sunday of Life • Up the Downstair • The Sky Moves Sideways • Signify • Stupid Dream • Lightbulb Sun • In Absentia • Deadwing • Fear of a Blank Planet • The Incident

Extended plays

Love, Death and Mussolini • Voyage 34 • Staircase Infinities • Moonloop • Nile Recurring

Live albums

Spiral Circus • Coma Divine • The Complete BBC Sessions • XM • Warszawa • XMII • We Lost the Skyline • Anesthetize • Octane Twisted

Compilation albums

Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape • Insignificance • Metanoia • Recordings • Stars Die: The Delerium Years 1991–1997 • Out Absentia • Recordings II

Video albums

Arriving Somewhere… • Anesthetize

personal data
SURNAME Wilson, Steven
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilson, Steven John (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British musician
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd November 1967
PLACE OF BIRTH Kingston upon Thames , London