Steven Wilson has announced his new album ‘Requiem For A Village’. Find all the details below.
The former Porcupine Tree musician and cult singer-songwriter released his eighth studio album ‘The Overview’ last year, a record inspired by the Overview Effect, the phenomenon experienced by astronauts when they first view Earth from outer space.
Now, he’s announced its follow-up, ‘Requiem For A Village’, which will be released on November 6 via Fiction Records.
Per a press release, this album is a rejection of modernity, with Wilson actively eschewing AI and corrective studio technologies in favour of live, organic instrumentation. It also features narration written by Andy Partridge of XTC and voiced by David Tennant.
Speaking about the LP, Wilson said: “I wanted to get back to a kind of music where you can hear the metaphorical thumbprints. Doubling down on the human gestures and flaws in the music, stuff that can’t be created using software.
“For example using only analogue synths with all their unpredictability, or not having instruments perfectly in tune. But it also lead to me picking up the violin, the oboe, or trying my hand on the drums – playing things I don’t really know how to play but getting something out of them that inspired me in ways I didn’t expect.”
He added: “Approaching the music with a sense of innocence and seeing where it took me. And where it took me was to the village.”
Listen to the title track and see a full tracklist below.
Steven Wilson’s ‘Requiem For A Village’ tracklist is:
1. ‘Swirl In A Lark’s Eye’
2. ‘Requiem For A Village’
3. ‘The Same River Twice’
4. ‘Now Departing’
5. ‘Hiraeth’
6. ‘On Chapel Slope’
7. ‘Murmuration’
8. ‘Curcus Fingerprint’
9. ‘A Basket Of Bees’
10. ‘Great Green Map’
11. ‘Wheel’
12. ‘The Old God Is Buried’
In other news, Wilson began remixing classic albums back in 2009 and has since created spatial audio reinterpretations of records by Tears For Fears, ABC, Chic, Ultravox, Suede, The Who, Van Morrison and Manic Street Preachers.
Last year, he revealed that the work he did on the Guns N’ Roses albums ‘Use Your Illusion I’ and ‘Use Your Illusion II’ wasn’t popular with the band, and was shelved despite being a full remix of nearly 40 songs, including outtakes and B-sides.
Wilson also spoke to NME last year about his dedication to spatial audio. “Atmos sound has nothing below you, and you could have speakers underneath,” he said. “But the big innovation won’t necessarily be in expanding spatial. I think it’s how to bring it into a live context.
“Right now, it’s tricky, as you need a week to acoustically calibrate and tune it, and that’s not practical when you play a new city every night. But it’s interesting to see more venues having spatial audio already installed, like The Sphere in Las Vegas.”
He continued: “If more venues do that, it gives artists chance to tour a more immersive show. I hope that will be a big progress over the next few years.”
