Steven Wilson

A series of photos 📸 taken by Hajo Müller in Hamburg on 20th Feb. I love them because they show many of the different emotions I move through during (and before) a concert. Performing for nearly 3 hours every night during the To the Bone tour has been a very intense and rewarding experience, but one that always leaves me pretty drained by the end of the night.

One of the things I’ve appreciated most about the To the Bone tour is what a joyous experience it’s been. This is definitely the happiest band and crew I’ve ever had, across 140 shows barely a moment of discord or raised voice, everyone working together to make every show special, always with a lot of joking around and good humour. And I feel that this sense of fun has translated to the audience, so that even though my music tends towards darker things, the shows have felt like a celebration of life. 📷 by Hajo Müller

😱 If you missed it, Lasse Hoile's brilliant video 🎬 for 'The Same Asylum as Before' is now online! Watch here 👉🏻 smarturl.it/sw-tsaab-video

😱 THE SAME ASYLUM AS BEFORE 🎬 smarturl.it/sw-tsaab-video Lasse Hoile's brilliant video for The Same Asylum as Before has only been viewable as part of the live To the Bone concert experience until now, but with the tour finally coming to an end in a few weeks, the time has come to share it online, especially since it's been very popular and much requested. Lasse and the actors shot the video in sub-zero temperatures in Denmark in January 2018, so it sounds like it's a lot more fun to watch than it was to make. Enjoy! Shot, cut and directed by: Lasse Hoile Produced by: Fade to Grey 2018 for SW Productions Ltd. Papermache heads designed by: Bente Laurenz Jacobsen Woodface designed by: Bettina Ejlersen Line producer: Camilla Schmidt Woodface actor: Nikolaj Buhrkal Perturbed big-head guy: Frank Rosgaard

There is now an official Steven Wilson page on Weibo for my Chinese 🇨🇳 fans, with a welcome message and some recent videos. If you are based in China (or know someone that is) please follow the page, I'm really curious to find out how many people are listening to my music with a view to hopefully playing concerts there one day! http://weibo.com/stevenwilsonhq

The show in Copenhagen 🇩🇰 on 21st February is moving venue from the Royal Arena to Det Kongelige Teater (Opera House). All tickets 🎫 for the Royal Arena will be honoured, but please note that there are only a few remaining tickets available for this show. In addition Tel Aviv 🇮🇱 Bologna 🇮🇹 and Helsinki 🇫🇮 are now completely sold out, and shows in Rennes 🇫🇷 Brussels 🇧🇪 Bergamo 🇮🇹 and Bochum 🇩🇪 are down to the last remaining tickets. stevenwilsonhq.com/sw/tour-dates/ 📷 by Joe del Tufo

Soundcheck in Lisbon 🇵🇹 today for the first show of the final leg of the To the Bone / Home Invasion tour, and probably last shows for quite some time. Looking forward to this! 😎

The new Tim Bowness album "Flowers at the Scene", which I co-produced and mixed with him under the no-man moniker, is now available to pre-order for 1st March release. As I previously wrote I think the album is wonderful. It features 11 diverse and concise songs of propulsive Art Rock, heartbreaking ballads and quirky pop, delivering cinematic storytelling and confessional lyrics. You can sample the album by watching a lyric video for the first single "I Go Deeper" here: https://youtu.be/ptY7m76xAps Available from burningshed.com/store/timbowness as deluxe digipak CD, 180g black vinyl, and 180g red vinyl editions. Both vinyl editions come in a gatefold cover with insert and also include a CD of the album.

There's only a very limited number of VIP upgrades remaining for the forthcoming Europe tour! burningshed.com/store/headphonedust/sw_hd_viptickets The upgrade (sold exclusively through Burning Shed and available for select shows only) includes early entry to attend an informal soundcheck performance of a few songs that won’t be in the main show, as well as exclusive goodies including a 60 minute live CD of a high quality recording made during the 2013 Raven tour (while Chad Wackerman was with the band). Each CD will be signed and personalised with your name, and will not be available from any other source. Strasbourg 🇫🇷 and Helsinki 🇫🇮 are sold out and only a handful of tickets remain for the Tel Aviv 🇮🇱 Bologna 🇮🇹 Bochum 🇩🇪 and Brussels 🇧🇪 shows.

Some of you will know that for about 10 years starting in the mid 90’s I did a fair amount of music / sound design for TV 📺 commercials alongside my own musical activities. These were nearly all in the UK, for brands like LEGO, The Observer, Sony PlayStation, Ski, M&M's UK, and MTV, some of which you may recognise if you’re of a certain age. Many of these were directed by my good friend Mike Bennion. Mike is also the person with whom I collaborated in 2003-4 on a script for a surreal ghost movie called Deadwing, which we wrote to give him an opportunity to direct a feature-length film. At the time we didn’t manage to get it financed, but we have recently reactivated and rewritten it (and changed the title) with a view to trying again, especially since what would have been fairly expensive to make 15 years ago is now more viable. These days you can make high quality movies on iPhones after all. At the time I recorded several songs and instrumental pieces for the soundtrack, but when it didn’t get off the ground they were instead placed on Deadwing and Insurgentes. For example the “David” mentioned in the song Lazarus is the main character in the Deadwing script, and the album version is essentially the demo I made for the movie with Gav’s drums added. What I want to do here is share with you one of the commercials we collaborated on around the same time we were working on the script, for a digital radio company called DMX. I chose this one because in terms of the visual aesthetic it’s closest to what we had (and still have) in mind for the film. Mike’s approach was to create as much of the surreal imagery as possible in camera rather than with computer manipulation, and I love the organic feel such that you can sense his personality and fingerprints in every frame. I have a memory that the company itself hit some financial problems soon after it was made, so I don’t know if the commercial was even broadcast in the end, but I happen to think it’s a bit of a work of art. Hoping to bring more news on the developing movie 🎥 soon (PS - we may need your help).

Steven Wilson’s New Year Update 2019

Home Invasion: In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall will be released as a lavish five 180gm vinyl box set via Caroline International on 22nd March 2019. Pre-order now 👉🏻 https://stevenwilson.lnk.to/HomeInvasionPC 🎬 by Crystal Spotlight

Both the 'Get All You Deserve' live album (recorded in Mexico City in 2012 on the Grace for Drowning tour) and 'Drive Home' (including unreleased tracks and live recordings from the Raven tour in 2013) are now available on all streaming/download services! 🎧 https://stevenwilsonkscope.lnk.to/Get_All_You_Deserve https://stevenwilsonkscope.lnk.to/Drive_Home

As it's that time of year again, I have compiled a Spotify playlist of some of my favourite 2018 sounds, which includes songs from new albums and reissues from the last year. 🎧

My long-term partner in no-man, Tim Bowness, has announced details of his new solo album Flowers at the Scene, to be released on 1st March. Having taken a big role in the album (and mixing it) Tim has elected to credit the production to both of us as "no-man". The album is wonderful, in my opinion the best solo album he has recorded. Despite the presence of several big-hitting contributors this is unmistakably Tim's album, covering all his various styles, from heartbreak ballads to quirky pop, with touches of jazz, Berlin-era Bowie and minimalism all thrown in across 11 relatively direct and concise songs. Very happy to be involved in this one. In the meantime we are gradually edging towards releasing some new No-Man music at some time in the not too distant future...

I'm pleased to announce that ex-Mansun Official frontman Paul Draper will be supporting at the majority of my shows in France 🇫🇷 next year on tour! He will be performing a stripped back acoustic set with his touring guitarist Ben Sink. Tickets and VIP upgrade packages (for Nantes, Bordeaux and Toulouse) are available here 👉🏻 stevenwilsonhq.com/sw/tour-dates/

25 years ago today, on the 4th December 1993, Porcupine Tree made its first ever live appearance at the Nag's Head in High Wycombe, UK. By then 2 albums and an EP had been released under the name (and a third one was half finished), all of which gave the impression that Porcupine Tree was a band, when in fact it was a solo project, just me messing about in my bedroom studio, although Colin and Richard had both guested on one song each on Up the Downstair released earlier that year. Positive press and a growing fanbase had led to increased pressure for live appearances, so in late 1993 I asked 3 brilliant musicians I knew, Colin Edwin (from my home town of Hemel Hempstead), Richard Barbieri and Chris Maitland (both of whom had played with my other band no-man) to join me in forming a real band line up of the project. For some reason they all agreed, and on the strength of the buzz about the project, Richard Allen at my then record company Delerium managed to book this show, as well as 2 others and a BBC radio session. After one week of rehearsals this was our first ever gig in front of an audience, performing a 7 song, 70 minute set in a backroom of a pub to about 200 people that had traveled from all over the country. The first song played was Voyage 34. which you can find elsewhere on the web, but here is a mixing desk recording of the second song Always Never. This would have also been the first time I had sung in front of an audience, at least since the days of my various school bands, so I can only imagine now how nervous I must have been at the prospect! The rest, as they say, is history...

Wonderful photos taken by Joe del Tufo at the show in Philadelphia! 📸

Deepest apologies to those with tickets for tonight at The Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto, this show has unfortunately been cancelled due to a broken water main at the venue. However we have managed to reschedule it for this coming Monday 26th at a different venue. It will now take place at The Opera House, 735 Queen St E, Toronto. Please note that all tickets for today’s cancelled show will be honoured on Monday, but in the event you are unable to attend please return the ticket to the point of purchase. The show is officially sold out but if there are any returned tickets they should be available from the venue box office in the coming days. Please accept my apologies again if you were due to attend tonight’s show, but this really was due to circumstances beyond my control, apparently this is coldest day of the year so far in Toronto!

Some great chart positions for Home Invasion! The final North America leg of the To The Bone tour starts today, don't miss your last chance to see this show in the flesh 👉🏻 stevenwilsonhq.com/sw/tour-dates/

My new concert film 🎬 'Home Invasion: In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall is released today, available on Blu-ray, DVD, CD and digital/streaming! Watch the full performance of 'Vermillioncore' here 👉🏻 http://smarturl.it/vermillioncore-rah

Watch the video for ‘People Who Eat Darkness’, directed by Jess Cope 👉🏻 http://smarturl.it/sw-pwad-video 🎃 “Steven’s song, ‘People Who Eat Darkness’ addresses the subject of terrorism and the uncomfortable thought that you could quite literally be living next door to a terrorist and never know until it was too late. Originally when we chatted about the concept, I thought I would tackle the subject head-on and do something quite hard hitting. But whilst I was midway through writing a narrative in which my main protagonist was constructing a home-made explosive device, the Manchester arena bombing happened, and it stopped me in my tracks. The video was specifically for Steven’s show and I realised the perception of doing something so literal could backfire badly if a real attack took place somewhere while he was on tour. I still wanted to stick with the theme, but like all of my videos I aim to take a theme and twist it into something a little less “realistic and a bit more supernatural. So, terrorism turned into an alien invasion, something perhaps along the lines of ‘The Faculty’ meets ‘Rear Window’. During my research I decided that the two-tone Hitchcock poster-style artwork would look awesome for the look of the film. The whole thing was animated and coloured digitally, but to avoid it being totally computer generated, I insisted that the artwork be hand drawn by the brilliant illustrator, Adam Oehlers.” - Jess x

People Who Eat Darkness. Halloween 2018. 🎃

While searching my cupboards for memorabilia for a book project yesterday, I found this. My 20 year old self scribbled out these cheerful words for a song called “A Radioactive Toy” 30 years ago, and in doing so kickstarted a project called Porcupine Tree.

Song of I 🖤 Watch the full performance from Home Invasion: In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall 👉🏻 http://smarturl.it/songofi-rah