Harmonic Distortion by Steven Wilson – Album Review

More a re-imagining than a remix

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Harmonic Distortion is the second disc on the Deluxe Edition of Steven Wilson’s seventh solo studio album The Harmony Codex (full review here) and is a separate, full-length album in its own right.

The Title of the Album

Harmony is the name of one of the two central characters in the short story on which The Harmony Codex album is based, written by Wilson and published in his 2022 book Limited Edition of One, so the word ‘harmonic’ in the title is a play on her name.

In physics, harmonics are what differentiate the sound of a violin from an oboe when they are playing the same note; different frequencies, or overtones, create the distinctive timbre of the sound. 

According to sweetwater.com  

Harmonic distortion is the result of a device subtly, or not so subtly, changing the shape of the waveform which alters the relative levels of various harmonics associated with that sound. 

On Harmonic Distortion, tracks from the original album are subtly – or not so subtly – reimagined. Talking to Stephen Humphries of Under the Radar, Wilson stressed that Harmonic Distortion isn’t a remix album, ‘there’s some really creative approaches to reworking and reimagining the material.’ He told Katherine Yeske Taylor of Rock And Roll Globe that rather than going to ‘very experienced remixers’ he asked artists who had collaborated with him on the main album to do whatever they wanted with the song they had chosen, including recording their own versions if they wished. He admitted to Anil Prasad of Innerviews that sometimes it was a way of being ‘very diplomatic’ to artists whose collaborations didn’t appear on the main album, using their work on the bonus disc instead. He didn’t specify which artists he was referring to here.

Individual Tracks

1 Codex Theme #7 (0.49) 

This track is one of several short ‘Codex themes’ scattered across the album, acting as bridge passages between the longer tracks, sometimes foreshadowing the next track. They give the album a lovely sense of flow, and sometimes divide up tracks of very different styles.

It features Atmospheric sound-scaping with Rotem Wilson’s (Steven’s wife) spoken words that feature on The Harmony Codex track on the main album, ‘It seems I’m miles above the surface of the earth…’ They are drenched in echo, until the final words ‘and breathe’ when the voice is suddenly in the room with us when the echo is cut, a very effective device.

2 Economies of Scale – Manic Street Preachers remix (4.05) 

The Manic Street Preachers’ remix of Economies of Scale was released as a single on 24 November 2023. The Manics’ lead singer/guitarist, James Dean Bradfield, quoted by Jerry Ewing of Prog, said the original track reminded him of The Police in the early 80s – the ‘bareness of the vocals, the steely percussion and slight detachment’ of tracks like ‘Walking in Your Footsteps’ and ‘Murder by Numbers’ from Synchronicity (1983), and Police drummer Stewart Copeland’s soundtrack to Rumble Fish (1983) released in the same year. He said that the Manics’ bass player, Nicky Wire, ‘immediately sought to push the second half of the track in more of a Holy Bible [the Manics’ 1994 album] direction.’ 

Wilson told Graham Fuller of the arts desk in December 2023 the original song is an ‘electronic soul ballad’, whereas the Manics’ version is a ‘rock guitar anthem.’ It’s fascinating to compare the two versions, particularly as they both use the same vocal melody and the complete set of lyrics (unlike some of the other tracks on this album) showing what a huge difference the chords and instruments used beneath a melody can make. The Manics’ version adds a lovely extra set of guitar chords at 1.50 and a driving earworm of a riff in the chorus, effectively creating a new track which stands up very well on its own. 

3 Codex Theme #9 (0.33) 

A lovely short excerpt, with flowing piano and acoustic guitar, based on the chords for What Life Brings from the main album. 

4 Inclination – Faultline remix (7.30) 

Faultline is the musical alter ego of producer David Kosten who worked on Wilson’s sixth studio album The Future Bites. Kosten helped Wilson bring a new, more electronic and radical sound world to that album, and his innovative approach is evident here as well. Kosten captures the aggressive atmosphere of the original track but with a quiet menace that is very different. The track begins with a haunting out of tune piano, disarmingly simple but ominous, like music for a horror film. Sampled breathing sounds like a feral beast.

The track revolves around the repeated piano motif, without the martial percussion of the original. When the percussion does appear at around three minutes in it’s absolutely brutal, in a drum and bass style. The melody is reduced to two lines only, ‘Come see the fool/He’ll swindle you out of the game.’ The vocals are heavily manipulated, with a ghostly, grotesque voice lurking below the main vocal. The melody itself is manipulated too, so that the leap to the word ‘fool’ changes from an interval of a minor third on the original track to a fourth then a fifth. A superbly evocative re-working of one of the finest tracks on the original album. 

5 Impossible Tightrope – alternate version (10.11) 

This is slightly shorter than the final version on the main album, omitting a section from around eight minutes in. The main difference is that Nate Navarro, who joined the Porcupine Tree tour in 2022, plays bass whereas Wilson plays the bass part on the main album. As mentioned in the chapter on the main album, Wilson’s version is much simpler than Navarro’s virtuosic playing, which can be viewed on his YouTube channel, Steven Wilson – Impossible Tightrope – BASS PLAYTHROUGH.

6 Codex Theme #6 (1.07) 

Brutal low synth drones followed by evocative, plaintive solo duduk playing from ‘Beautiful Scarecrow.’ 

7 Beautiful Scarecrow – Meat Beat Manifesto Excursion 1 (6.05) 

This version of the track is remixed by Jack Dangers of electronic group Meat Beat Manifesto who provides ‘additional sounds and beats’ on the original album track. Dangers takes the brutal aspects of the original track to an exhilarating extreme. He adds very heavy drum and bass beats and glittering keyboards. At around 2.40 the beats become even more extreme, clattering agitatedly. At around 3.05 the bass line drops even lower than on the original track, taking us into the heart of darkness. A simple but highly effective re-imagining.  

8 Codex Theme #8 (1.03) 

A gorgeous solo piano improvisation by Adam Holzman on the themes from ‘Time is Running Out.’ 

9 Time is Running Out – Mikael Åkerfeldt version (3.47) 

This is the only track on this album which is sung by someone other than Wilson, his close friend and collaborator, Mikael Åkerfeldt. The two have worked together on music by Opeth, Storm Corrosion and Porcupine Tree. Åkerfeldt was born in 1974 so is about seven years younger than Wilson, but he delivers the lyrics to this song about ageing with great passion and authority and a sense of drama as the song develops. It’s a much simpler version than on the main album, giving prominence to Adam Holzman’s gorgeous, flowing piano part. At around 2.30, Wilson provides rich synthesised strings and theremin, playing notes from the whole tone scale often used by French composer Claude Debussy in his piano works (such as ‘Voiles’ from his first book of Préludes), to give a sense of hope and mystery which is missing from the original track. 

10 Staircase – Interpol Remix (6.47) 

The first of two very different versions of the song, the second one being the final track, re-versioned by The Radiophonic Workshop. This version is by the American rock band Interpol. A radical re-imagining, it drops all the original vocals, and retains only the words ‘I close my eyes’ which are taken from the spoken word section at the end of the original track. It’s also in a different key and a different time signature (six beats in a bar as opposed to four). It uses the same piano loop throughout, with some added guitar. The effect is claustrophobic, evoking the sensation of being trapped in an infinite staircase like the characters in Wilson’s short story on which the original album is based. 

11 Codex Theme #3 (1.03) 

Gentle ambient synth patches, and trumpet from Nils Petter Molvær, from ‘Inclination’, the opening track on the main album. 

12 What Life Brings – Aug 22 mix by Roland Orzabal (4.16) 

Roland Orzabal of Tears For Fears plays keyboards on this track and is joined by Aaron Sterling on drums and Doug Petty on keyboards and string arrangements. Both worked on the 2022 Tears for Fears album The Tipping Point. Wilson remixed the Tears for Fears albums The Hurting (1983), Songs From the Big Chair (1985) and The Seeds Of Love (1989). Orzabal brings a completely different feel to the song, turning it from a rock ballad into a majestic synth epic which sets the original vocal line in a completely different context. The synth parts have a similar feel to the work of the master of the sequenced synthesiser, Giorgio Moroder, particularly tracks like ‘Leopard Tree Dream’ from his score for the 1982 film Cat People which featured David Bowie on vocals. The track also features synth motifs that fall like electronic rain, and towards the end the heavily echoed, almost acapella voices of Wilson and Ninet Tayeb. 

13 The Harmony Codex – long take (17.02) 

This extended version of the title track of the album somehow lacks the mesmerising, spell-binding majesty of the album version, feeling like a work in progress, but still stands on its own as a good track. What is interesting is that as the track develops it takes on the sound of a fairground organ of the type heard on ‘Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite’ from The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). This relates to the Harmony Codex short story. Harmony appears to her brother Jamie in a vision or dream, riding a horse on a ‘magnificent fairground carousel’, accompanied by music from a pipe-organ (page 357 of the hardback edition of the book). 

14 Staircase – Radiophonic Workshop remix (12.36) 

The second version of the track, the first being by Interpol (see above). The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was founded in 1958 by Daphne Oram and Desmond Briscoe to create sound effects and electronic music for radio and television. Its most famous composition was the theme for the original Doctor Who TV series, written in 1963 by the Australian composer Ron Grainer and painstakingly turned into a piece of musique concrète by Delia Derbyshire. The BBC closed the Workshop in 1998, but its legacy continues under the Radiophonic Workshop name, with original members including Peter Howell, Roger Limb, Dr Dick Mills and Paddy Kingsland working together on recorded and live music, together with producer and archivist Mark Ayres who produced this version of ‘Staircase.’ 

Appropriately for a creative team that was originally set up to create sound effects as well as music, Ayres’ version includes sound effects that relate to the Harmony Codex short story more closely than anything written by Wilson for the main album. We hear the lift going up in the tower where Harmony’s father works; the explosion that rips through the skyscraper; footsteps as Jamie and Harmony climb the stairs; the wind swirling through the empty offices through the broken windows. There are also more electronic effects and noises which seem to reflect the more dreamlike aspects of the story, and the Earth seen from space. Then, in a remarkable and highly imaginative alternative ending, we hear the lines sung by Ninet Tayeb from ‘Rock Bottom’,

I feel it, I feel it in my bones
New life, the unknown, new life, I will return

An uplifting end to one of the strongest tracks on the album. 

Conclusion

Harmonic Distortion is a valuable addition to the main Harmony Codex album. Whereas some remixes of songs or albums by other artists don’t really add anything, and come sometimes even detract from the originals, the songs on this album create a satisfying whole, a genuine bonus for those lucky enough to have been able to obtain a copy before the Deluxe Box Set sold out.

Sources

Humphries, S., Steven Wilson on “The Harmony Codex” (Under the Radar 20/09/2023) 

Yeske Taylor, K., Steven Wilson Goes Solo Again With The Harmony Codex (Rock and Roll Globe 4/10/2023) 

Prasad, A., Steven Wilson The Never-Ending Staircase (Innerviews September 2023) 

Ewing, J., Manic Street Preachers remix Steven Wilson’s Economies of Scale (Prog 27/11/2023) 

Fuller, G., The arts desk Q&A: Steven Wilson on Porcupine Tree, ‘The Harmony Codex’ and electro-dominance (the arts desk 12/12/2023)