Porcupine Tree aka Steven Wilson Super Genius

Porcupine Tree fans here?

Indeed Fear Of A Blank Planet is one of the best albums I ever heard. But, he's just getting started IMO.

Another band that is a recent discovery for me. My brother-in-law turned me onto thse guys about a year ago and I became an instant fan. I only have a few of their discs right now and a cdr of "hits", but they're on the list. Got to see them live back in September and they were brilliant.

I recently picked up Voyage 34: The Complete Trip in the used section at FYE. I didn't know a thing about it, but it's rare that you find their discs in the used section, so I snapped it up blindly.

Very weird, but in the right mood, it's pretty cool.

Voyage 34 was kind of a joke initially, the original version released as a cassette-only single. Wilson later completed it and released it as "The Complete Trip".

It's actually a cool listen, another PT release that falls into the same kind of category is Metanoia...that was all improvisations the band was doing while rehearsing new material. That stuff isn't normally released, but they were happy enough with the results to put it out separately. That album is mostly "ambient" but in a very cool way.

Hey SD, is Bass Communion any good?

Akeldama wrote:

Hey SD, is Bass Communion any good?

Haven't gotten that far yet, lots to catch up on. I have a 2 CD collection of "no-man" that I really enjoy, I also picked up the first Blackfield album, haven't spent much time with it yet but I dig it.

Porcupine Tree kind of "clicked" when they did the Signify album. They were essentially a "project band" prior to that.

Wilson has announced that his new solo album is actually a double album...and he's going to tour behind it!

from his facebook page:
I'm very happy to announce that following the release of my new solo album "Grace For Drowning" in September, I will be undertaking my first ever solo tour of Europe and North America. For this tour I am very fortunate to have the talents of an extraordinary line up of musicians to perform the music - Marco Minnemann on drums, Nick Beggs on bass, Aziz Ibrahim on guitar, Gary Husband on keyboards, and Theo Travis on flute / sax. And myself (not extraordinary) on vocals, guitars and keyboards. The shows will also include a lot of multimedia and films, material that is being especially prepared by Lasse Hoile as we speak. The music will be drawn from both my solo albums (the newest of which is a double CD, so there is plenty of material to choose from), but please do not come along and shout out for PT songs! The dates will be announced in the next 24 hours or so at www.gracefordrowning.com, but run approximately from mid October to mid November. Please come along if you can, I think these shows are going to be quite an adventure.

I've always dug double albums, this one appeals to me. I wonder how it's gonna sound? Any more clips of it SD?

no clips yet, but I would assume it's a continuation of styles explored on the last album.

Wilson has no problem writing material, in fact he always has too much. Once I put all the demos and actual recorded tracks from Porcupine Tree's In Absentia album together, it clocked in at almost 2 hours. Only about half of that made it onto the finished album.

That'll be weird seeing Gary Husband(Holdsworth, Level 42) behind the keys instead of the drums. Wow!!!!! Nick Beggs from Kajagoogoo and Aziz from Simply Red(and Asia at one time).... Very interesting line up and they are all really damn good players.... I'm gonna have to catch this show if it rolls by close enough.

All these dudes from '80s bands I don't like? I still can't deny their talent though, I hope he releases a live DVD.

Wilson likes to capture certain types of tones and sounds from different eras, but he'd rather hire musicians that can create that sound instead of using samples. I can't wait to see what he cooks up for this tour.

I bet the album will be amazing (though there is probably many different musicians on the recording).

This list is cool:

20 Albums That Deserve To Be In Surround Sound
Steven Wilson reveals 20 surround mixes that should exist but don't.

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/article/20-albums-deserve-be-surround-sound?page=0,0

Thanks for sharing that link, always a pleasure to read his views on classic albums.

Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Marvin Gaye, ELO? Man, thay'd all sound KILLER in surround sound.

Some excellent choices there, I'd love to hear Wilson remix some of those into 5.1, especially that Zappa.

Mikael Åkerfeldt and Steven Wilson will release an album called 'Storm Corrosion' in 4/12. By the way Wilson desribes it it should be pretty interesting and not just an Opeth/Tree mash-up.

I wonder if it'll be very 70's proggish????

Steven Wilson said, "We used a lot of acoustic instrumentation, like strings, woodwinds, acoustic guitars and percussion, and we're both singing and trading instruments. Itks not like anything you might expect."

Sounds interesting!

Cool interview.

In-depth interview with Steven Wilson, I always find it interesting to read about his creative process.

http://www.innerviews.org/inner/wilson.html

Here's a link to pre-order the Storm Corrosion album:

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/news/storm-corrosion-preorder-20120309