Steven Wilson: "Home Invasion" and "Regret #9" (live)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From a Yahoo! / Live Nation broadcast, here are Steven Wilson and his awesome band performing "Home Invasion" and "Regret #9," two songs that work as one, both on Wilson's 2015 album Hand. Cannot. Erase. (to me, the Dark Side of the Moon of our time, and, like Pink Floyd's masterpiece, one of the greatest albums ever made -- perhaps the pinnacle of Wilson's career so far, including his time with Porcupine Tree), at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on June 13, 2015.

I saw Steven Wilson in Toronto on that tour, and "Regret #9" was certainly one of the highlights of what was a truly incredible show from start to finish. The back-to-back keyboard and guitar solos by Adam Holzman and Dave Kilminster, respectively, were simply astonishing, as they are here.

Enjoy!

A preview of the forthcoming Steven Wilson album

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you may have seen, we haven't been posting much lately. Suffice it to say, we've been busy, and preoccupied with other things. But we'll try to keep up the blogging now and then, so stay tuned -- and, you never know, we may turn our collective attention back to this blog before too long. In the meantime, some sporadic posting...

And so why not, this Saturday evening, turn not to political commentary but to music, so much a part of this blog as well, and specifically to one of the best of the very best, Steven Wilson (about whom I've written before on several occasions), whose next solo album (with the amazing band he's had for most of his recent "solo" career) is set to be released next February.

Count me incredibly excited. His first three solo albums -- Insurgentes, Grace for Drowning, and The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) -- got progressively better, one after the other, though it's very close for the last two and I'm actually quite partial to Grace, though they're all fantastic and I prefer not to rank them. But where Insurgentes is very much a Porcupine Tree-style album, and not as distinctly solo, and where Grace is a bit all over the place, The Raven is a cohesive masterpiece of the prog rock genre, in many ways a quite retro, '70s-style album, but also post-prog given its vision and breadth, and very much a towering rock album by any standard.

And now Wilson is saying that his forthcoming album is a combination of all his solo work, maybe all his work. Which would be pretty impressive, for sure, but I have no doubt it'll be magnificent -- and what's certain is that it will be another leap forward for Wilson, who never does the same thing but prefers to keep challenging himself and, with each new work, breaking free from his own past.

Here's a short film, by frequent collaborator Lasse Hoile, of Wilson and his band recording the new album at AIR Studios in London. Enjoy!

Steven Wilson at AIR Studios, London - September 2014 from Kscope on Vimeo.

Blackfield: "Pain" and "Jupiter"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Blackfield, which last year released its fourth album, Blackfield IV, is a collaboration between Steven Wilson and Israeli pop star Aviv Geffen.

Actually, it's now pretty much just Geffen. Wilson was heavily involved with the first two albums, Blackfield (2004) and Blackfield II (2007) as songwriter, singer, and guitarist, but with the third, Welcome to My DNA (2011) Geffen took over, as Wilson focused on his solo work, and the fourth is basically a Geffen solo album featuring Wilson and others as guests. Blackfield, including Wilson, is currently on a short tour in Europe this month, but Wilson announced that these would be his last shows as a member of the band.

Blackfield will go on, and I'm eager to see where Geffen takes it, but it's disappointing, if certainly understandable, that Wilson won't be part of it anymore. While there's a lot to like on the second two albums, the Geffen albums, the first two, to me, are much better, and it's the combination of Wilson and Geffen that made them so great. (For just how great, check out not just the studio albums but also Live in New York City (2007).)

Also, for a huge Wilson fan like me, it was great for him to be part of a project that allowed him to express his pop sensibilities, a songwriting side that he doesn't express through his solo work or through his most famous project, Porcupine Tree. In both of those cases, he goes mostly for longer, complex, hugely challenging compositions that fuse diverse musical elements into post-prog mastery. But he's always had other outlets as well for his other interests, like the ambient electronica of Bass Communion or the folky psychedelia of Storm Corrosion. Blackfield was one of those outlets, featuring accessible but still intelligent and provocative pop rock. Maybe he's just putting everything into his solo work now, with hopefully a return of Porcupine Tree soon, but one wonders where that pure pop impulse will go next. (Although, that second Blackfield album is from seven years ago, and some of his pop sounds has gone into his solo work, like the song "Drive Home" on his last album, The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories), from last year.)

In any event, it's been a wonderful four-album run with Wilson, and hopefully it will continue with much more from the very talented Geffen.

Here are the videos for "Pain" (from Blackfield) and "Jupiter" (from Blackfield IV, featuring Wilson), with some incredible sand art by Ilana Yahav in the latter. Enjoy!

Anathema: "Dreaming Light" and "Thin Air"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

While I've been an Anathema fan for a long time, dating back to 2001's A Fine Day to Exit (if not to their metal days before that), my fandom deepened profoundly in 2013, to the point where I now put them in Porcupine Tree territory. I attribute this in part to the release in 2012 of Weather Systems, an incredible album that is, I think their best to date. It prompted me to go back through their awesome catalogue, and I came to appreciate them like I hadn't before.

It helped, too, that 2013 saw the release of Universal, a four-disc set (2 CD, DVD, Blu-ray) of the band's stunning September 2012 show at the ancient Roman theater in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (also known by its Greek name, Philippopolis), with the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra. It was filmed by Lasse Hoile, best known for his work with Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson's solo projects. It's an incredible film of an incredible performance by an incredible band. Wilson's third solo album, The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories), is my favorite new album of 2013, but Universal is certainly an impressive achievement, and it's my favorite live album of the year.

(Last month, I posted "Untouchable (Part Two)," my favorite Anathema song, from Universal.)

Here are two of Anathema's best songs, both from 2010's We're Here Because We're Here (mixed by Steven Wilson, no less): "Dreaming Light" (video) and "Thin Air" (live at London's Union Chapel, also on the Universal release).

Enjoy!

Spring Breakers and its stunning "Everytime" scene

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So, I finally got around to watching Spring Breakers last night. I can't say I'm much of a Harmony Korine fan, whose films generally consist of frighteningly beautiful and/or haunting and/or distasteful images amounting to little more than hollow pretension -- I much prefer the song "Harmony Korine" by Steven Wilson -- but this one, his most celebrated to date (if still arousing wildly different views), is actually quite impressive.

It's monotonous and boring at times, in spite of (or perhaps because of) all the nudity and sex (at times it seems like wall-to-wall tits and asses, boobs and butts, and not always in a good way), foul language, drug use, and violence, but it's an intriguing (and shocking) presentation of postmodern American nihilism, of a dream turned dystopic, of the dark side of youth culture and so of a terribly bleak future, and while neither the story nor the characters are developed at all, it has in its depiction of this materialistic madness a potency that exceeds its various shortcomings and that sets it apart from almost the entirety of American cinema these days, at least the sort of cinema you find at your local brain-numbing, soul-crushing multiplex.

So, yes, I recommend it.

The opening scene, of boys and girls going wild on the beach, set to Skrillex's "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites," is stunning, but so too, in much quieter fashion, is the "Everytime" scene, with James Franco (who's excellent and certainly deserving of Oscar consideration) serenading his three young, pink-masked admirers with Britney Spears's song "Everytime" (Britney's music features prominently in the movie, as if she somehow provides much of the soundtrack to American's cultural degradation, which of course she does), while a montage shows the four of them wreaking violent havoc as they embark on a crime spree that, well, can't end well.

It's a fantastic scene, with a Britney song that actually isn't awful (maybe her best?), and very much representative of the movie of which it is the centerpiece. And here it is:

Opeth: "The Devil's Orchard" and "Harlequin Forest"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Let's kick it up a notch tonight...

I came to Opeth, a Swedish band that has evolved from death metal in its early years to a generally more expansive prog rock sound to the point where it is now considered one of the world's leading prog acts, by way of Porcupine Tree.

It's not clear to me exactly how it happened, but the evolution of both bands, with Opeth becoming more progressive from Damnation (2003) on and PT embracing metal from In Absentia (2002) on, seems to parallel the close friendship of the two bands' leading forces, Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt and PT's Steven Wilson, a friendship that led to their fascinating and unpredictable collaboration as Storm Corrosion.

However it all happened, though, you can't be a PT and Steven Wilson fan, as I am, without coming across Opeth. (Aside from the obvious cross-influences, Åkerfeldt provided backing vocals on PT's Deadwing (2005), while Wilson mixed Opeth's most recent album, it's tenth, Heritage (2011).) And of course Opeth is certainly a worthy band in its own right, and I suspect a lot of people came to PT by way of Opeth.

Anyway, I can't say I'm a huge fan. I don't much care for the death metal stuff -- actually, I dislike it immensely -- and while its more recent albums are certainly more progressive, there's still that hard sound that is, well, just a bit too hard for me, and lyrically Opeth is just way too overwrought for its own good. (I've never liked, say, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, or Iron Maiden, all of which have been key influences on Åkerfeldt.) I like how Wilson incorporated some metal into PT's sound, but that's about all I can take.)

Still, there's a lot to like on, say, Watershed (2008), despite Åkerfeldt's sometimes growling vocals, and Heritage, which is as far from death metal as Opeth has gone thus far, is an impressive album. And so let's go there tonight...

Here's the video for "The Devil's Orchard," the second track off Heritage:


And let's do another one, showcasing Opeth's harder sound...

Here's "Harlequin Forest," from Ghost Reveries (2005), performed live at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2010 and released on the band's live concert album:

Steven Wilson: "Drive Home" and "The Raven that Refused to Sing" (videos)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

On October 22, Kscope is releasing a new two-disc set (one CD, one Blu-ray/DVD) from Steven Wilson, Drive Home. It includes live versions of a few of the songs on Wilson's most recent solo album, The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories), as well as two previously unreleased tracks and the videos for "The Raven that Refused to Sing" and, yes, "Drive Home" (my two favorite songs on the album).

I saw Wilson and his incredible band here in Toronto back in April. The live versions are amazing. (Having just returned from three shows in Australia, Wilson and band embark on another European leg of touring starting on Tuesday in Bristol, England. They can't come back to North America soon enough.) And the videos are simply stunning, matching Wilson's themes of mortality, memory, and isolation with images that give additional life to the lyrics without giving too much away.

Here's "Drive Home" (directed by Jess Cope):


And here's "The Raven that Refused to Sing" (directed by Cope and Simon Cartwright -- see this Vimeo video of Cope talking about making the video):

Steven Wilson: "The Raven that Refused to Sing" (live)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's been some time since I've posted anything from Porcupine Tree or Steven Wilson -- and, if you know me, you know how much I love them (and perhaps also how much I blog about them).

So without further ado, here is the great Steven Wilson, with his incredible band (not PT -- this is a solo effort for which he has put together a new band), performing the title track off his brilliant 2013 album, The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories), in Neu-Isenberg, Germany, on March 23 of this year.

It's the best song on the album, in my view, and one of the best songs he's ever written. I saw them perform it in Toronto in April and it was truly one of the highlights of what was simply an awesome show. (Back in February, I posted the video for the song.)

Enjoy!

Steven Wilson: "The Watchmaker"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We're now just a couple of days away from the Steven Wilson concert here in Toronto -- and, suffice it to say, I'm incredibly excited. (I'm a huge fan.)

Here is Steven (with his amazing band) performing "The Watchmaker" (from his third and most recent solo album, The Raven that Refused to Sing (and other stories), which is fantastic) on the European leg of the tour, at Neu-Isenberg, Germany, on March 23.

Enjoy!

Steven Wilson: The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Steven Wilson's third solo album, The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories), was released by Kscope last Monday.

And it's incredible.

I've been listening to it all week, and it just keeps growing on me. It's Wilson without Porcupine Tree, but it features the incredible band he put together to tour with his second album, Grace for Drowning, and it's actually not so much a proper solo album as a musically, lyrically, and narratively complex and challenging album written specifically for the band as a whole, and with parts written specifically for, and with further elaboration by, the individual members of the band.

Indeed, what stands out to me is not just the remarkable maturity of Wilson's songwriting and the high level of musicianship but just how organic it all feels, each of the parts fitting together perfectly for the single purpose of making this record (and taking it on tour), from the writing to the performing to the producing to the engineering (by none other than engineering legend Alan Parsons).

In the end, I still prefer the post-prog sounds of Porcupine Tree to the more traditionally progressive, '70s-oriented sounds here, but at the same time I prefer not to compare the two. Steven Wilson "solo" is different than Steven Wilson with Porcupine Tree, and than Steven Wilson any of his various "side" projects. That's what makes him Steven Wilson.

And there is a great deal to like here, far too much to mention in a short review. I would, however, single out the concluding title track, one of the most beautiful and poignant songs he's ever written, as well as the shorter "Drive Home," with an astounding guitar solo from Guthrie Govan, as well as the opener, "Luminol," a bass- and drum-driven piece that Wilson performed on the Grace tour, and the epic "The Holy Drinker," the one song that hits me harder and harder the more I listen to it.

Like I said, it's an incredible album. I barely even skim the surface with this few comments. Go out and listen to it. More than once.

**********

A couple of weeks ago, I posted the video for "The Raven that Refused to Sing." You can watch it here.

Here's a clip of Wilson and the band recording "The Holy Drinker" in L.A. last year (the deluxe version of the album comes with a short film of the recording sessions by Wilson collaborator Lasse Hoile).

Steven Wilson: "Luminol" (live)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Exactly a month ago, I wrote a post on Steven Wilson, my beloved Porcupine Tree's founder, lead singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter, and also, among other things, one half of the wonderful Blackfield (with Israeli star Aviv Geffen), one half of No-Man (with singer Tim Bowness), and one half of Storm Corrosion (with Swedish progressive metal rocker Mikael Åkerfeldt) -- and now also a solo artist with two great albums that rival the best of Porcupine Tree: Insurgentes (2008) and Grace for Drowning (2011).

The post included 1) the video for "Harmony Korine"; 2) a live performance of that song taken from the Get All You Deserve live DVD/Blu-ray, performed in Mexico City, at the Teatro Metropólitan, on the Grace for Drowning tour; 3) the video for "Index"; and 4) the trailer for Get All You Deserve.

I noted that I was really, really excited for Get All You Deserve, set to be released on September 24.

Update: It's awesome. Simply... fucking... awesome.

For example... "Luminol." (Which might even appeal to a certain Richard K. Barry, what with its prominent sax and experimental jazz sound. Yes, there's even a flute.)

Enjoy!