Steven John Wilson is a self-taught, yet twice Grammy nominated producer, audio engineer, guitar and keyboard player, playing other instruments as and where required, including bass guitar, concert harp, hammer dulcimer and flute. He is involved in many bands and projects such as Altamont, Karma, No-Man, Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, Bass Communion, Blackfield and not at least he is best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. Wilson appears on several other albums by artist such as Mick Karn, Indigo Falls, Fish, Marillion, Richard Barbieri, Anja Garbarek, Opeth, Yoko Ono, Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess, Orphaned Land, Anathema among many others as musician, sound engineer or producer.
“Grace For Drowning” is Wilson’s second solo album released on September 26th, by Kscope Records. The special edition of the album is going to release on Blu-Ray video disc with the music playing in 5.1 surround sound and accompanying visuals and videos for each track, making it the first-ever rock album released primarily as a Blu-Ray video disc.
The album features contributions by artist such as Nic France on drums, Steve Hackett, Robert Fripp, Tony Levin, Nick Beggs and Trey Gunn on guitar, Theo Travis and Jordan Rudess, and some jazz musicians. Touring members will include Marco Minnemann on drums, Nick Beggs on bass, Aziz Ibrahim on guitar, Gary Husband on keyboards, and Theo Travis on flute and saxophone.
Steven Wilson – Raider (edit) (full track from Grace for Drowning) by Kscope
At age of 15 he form Altamont with Simon Vockings. In 1986, Wilson launched “No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man),” a project which later would 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 in the following year. The second project started in 1986 was “Porcupine Tree” including Malcolm Stocks, and which was originally a full-on pastiche of psychedelic rock. Both projects bring success and recognition for Wilson.
In November 2008 Wilson released his first official solo album, entitled “Insurgentes”. Also, 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.
After the release of “Insurgentes”, Steven Wilson spent time on a number of his other projects, include Porcupine Tree’s album “The Incident” in 2009, Blackfield’s third album, “Welcome to My DNA”, and an on-going project with Mikael Ã…kerfeldt, the lead singer of the band Opeth, named “Storm Corrosion”.
In early June 2011, Wilson launched a minisite for the new album revealing the album’s name and album art photographed by his long time collaborator Lasse Hoile and additionally, a free download of the track “Remainder the Black Dog”.
“Grace For Drowning” is a “journeys in sound” as Wilson has stated. Eventually imagine a musical and creative collision between Bill Laswell’s Last Exit and Emerson, Lake & Palmer with a smooth, but spicy taste of King Crimson added. Spacy and minimal passages are turned into free-jazz like explosions, acoustic and electric moments follow up in a groovy tension of changing moods and vibes. From jazz to heavy metal and from psychedelic to avant-garde, from blues to folk, “Grace For Drowning” takes you all over. It’s like a move, or much better, like life itself.
As Wilson said: “There’s everything from Ennio Morricone-esque film themes to choral music to piano ballads to a 23 minute progressive jazz –inspired piece. I’ve actually used a few jazz musicians this time, which is something I picked up from my work remixing the King Crimson records”.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/29388334 w=545&h=307]
Steven Wilson – Raider II (Recording at Angel Studios) from Kscope on Vimeo.
Limited to 5000 copies worldwide, the deluxe edition features 3 CDs, the Blu-ray Disc and a 120-page book. In addition to the album on 2CDs, the third CD features out-takes and demo material. All 4 discs will be packaged in a hard back book which features 120 pages of artwork and notes.
Steven Wilson Headquarter
Grace For Drowning – Official Site
Kscope Records
