Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning (2nd solo album)

Coming out this fall, Lasse Holle created one of his creepy ass videos for the "teaser trailer". The teaser is just orchestral, but man I have a feeling this is going to be one seriously DARK record.

I'm so looking forward to it....

man, that is really creepy. You know, I still haven't checked out Insurgentes (though I did d/l the bonus material from his soundcloud site, but I wasn't all that impressed by that material). Is Insurgentes good?

Groovy.

Is Wilson's solo stuff much different than his work in Porcupine Tree? Seeing how's he is the brains behind both, I'd think they'd be pretty similiar, no?

Sorry, MG, I missed your question.

Basically, the only real difference between the PT records and Wilson's solo stuff, is that he doesn't have to worry about recreating the songs in concert, so they have a much broader sonic palette.

Insurgentes is actually my favorite Wilson recording so far (counting both PT and solo).

As big of a PT fan as I am, I have not explored any of Steven Wilson's other projects, solo, Blackfield, No-Man. I keep trying to whittle away at the want list, and it keeps growing!

I'm in the same boat. I still have about 5 or so PT albums I want to get, before I will look into Insurgentes or his other projects (although I'll buy his collaboration with Mikael immediately upon release)

Here's one of my favorite tracks from Insurgentes:

Tur-Thalion wrote:

(although I'll buy his collaboration with Mikael immediately upon release)

+1. This will be a pre-order.

Looking forward to this!

Sounds pretty good. Only thing is and this can go for numerous people doing solo project or other bands out of their main band, why couldn't this just be like a new Porcupine Tree album? Its really not much different.

This past weekend I came across Blackfield which I didn't know anything about except the store wrote on the sticker that it had something to do with PT so I figured what the hell I'll pick up the 2 cds they had. I listened to it as soon as I got in the car and I enjoyed it, but again its not really different from PT.

I'm not complaining don't get me wrong, I just think when people do side stuff they should mix it differently or use different sounds etc.

I'm going to check into more of Steves solo stuff as well. PT is great, Blackfield is great and I'm guessing this is no different haha

Porcupine Tree is more of a band and the other guys contribute to the writing process (not as much as Steve, but still important). They have veto power on what songs he brings in, sometimes they'll decide not to do a specific track and then he'll re-purpose that for one of his other projects.

Steven likes to work with different vocalists, that's why the Blackfield project exists (he admired the guy) and why he works with Mikael from Opeth.

If you look at the credits on Insurgentes, there are different combinations of musicians on every track and stylistically it's all over the map. Still sounds like him, but each track has it's own flavor because of the players involved...and that's what he likes to focus on.

Not much different than Robert Fripp recording albums with Brian Eno or David Sylvian, doing albums with King Crimson and doing the various Projeckt albums. He thrives off the interactions.

What is this Blackfield project of which you speak?

Blackfield is a collaboratory musical group between Porcupine Tree founder and lead singer Steven Wilson and Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen.

website:
http://www.blackfield.org/

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

That's kinda nice. Kinda mellow, but nice. Is all their stuff on the mellow-er side of things? By the way, nice to see that the guys that did the 'Money For Nothing' video are still working today.

So far I've only had the chance to listen to the new album Welcome To My DNA and it is pretty mellow but in a good way. I think the whole album is on youtube.

Update from Wilson's facebook page, he's going to tour behind the solo album! YAY!

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....

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.

New here on the forum, but read your posts about his different side projects (and that they all sound like PT, which I definitely don't think they do). So I'll try to point out the different genres that they belong to, and post an example on Youtube of each of the projects.

Porcupine Tree: Progressive rock. No need to talk about them, as you all may know of PT.
Blackfield: Pop-rock, easy to listen to. Collaboration with Aviv Geffen. My personal favourite of Blackfield is 'Blackfield I'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw1NGzbPQ3c
No-Man: Art-rock. Collaboration with Tim Bowness. Tim sings and write almost all of the material, while Steven plays the instruments (often with guest musicians). Would recommend 'Together We're Stranger'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6xf_qBlFoc
Bass Communion: Ambient, drone. Would recommend 'Ghosts on Magnetic Tape' or 'Bass Cmmunion II' for starters. Had a hard time getting into this side project at first, but I'm loving almost all of it now, even though some of it can be very noisy ('Molotov and Haze').
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpWdRByBRk0
I.E:M.: Krautrock. Experimental and improvisational rock. He made 4 records under this name, but doesn't do it anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiOqHrPI12s
Insurgentes: a blend of all the genres. The song 'Harmony Korine' together with the song 'Insurgentes' may be the most 'listenable' on the record. Almost every other song are very experimental. For many a love-hate album. I love it myself, it's one of my favourite records of all time. If you got a 5.1 system, then this is the record!
My favourite song on the record: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXxZkNjKsic
Besides all of this, he has done a lot more. The series of cover versions, the album 'Unreleased Electronic Music' and mixing a lot of other artists music and making official reissues of old classics into 5.1 music (for example King Crimson, Caravan, Jethro Tull).

Hope this helps a bit, and that I didn't totally ruin this thread about his new solo album, which I seriously can't wait to be released!

welcome to the board and thanks for posting!

Thanks for that breakdown. Very informative. I had no idea Wilson was involved in so many projects.

Yeah, thanks!!!! That I.E.M. and Bass Communion sound right up my alley!!!! I knew that he was into stuff like Manual Gostching and Ash Ra Temple.

Just saw this:

Quote :

This limited deluxe edition of Steven Wilson's Grace For Drowning features a 120-Page Hardcover Book, containing the two CD volumes that make up the album: Volume One: Deform To Form A Star and Volume Two: Like Dust I Cleared From My Eye, as well as a bonus disc of outtakes and demo material entitled, Volume Three: The Map.

The deluxe edition also features a 5.1 Surround Mix Blu-Ray Disc with additional audio demos, five videos (directed by Lasse Hoile), a photo gallery and handwritten notes/lyrics.

This limited edition box set is available in North America exclusively through Newbury Comics, and only available through our online store, newburycomics.com.

Only $89.99! Haha.

Steven Wilson just made available the song "Cut Ribbon," which was last recorded in the Grace for Drowning sessions, though it was originally going to be for the project with Mikael Akerfeldt.

I'm listening to it now for the 2nd time and it's really awesome. Really heavy too. Too bad it apparently won't see an official release.

Here's a link: http://soundcloud.com/steven-wilson/cut-ribbon

Cut Ribbon is a great song, I have an earlier demo version (from the In Absentia era).

Thanks for sharing!