Going through my late mother-in-law’s personal effects recently, we found a pile of old 78s that belonged to her husband, who died many years ago. We decided to buy a turntable to play them, and the decades rolled back. Steven Wilson found a similar collection in his parents’ loft and used them to create Ghosts on Magnetic Tape, the fourth Bass Communion album.
Steven Wilson is best known as the leader of prog rock band Porcupine Tree, and for his extensive solo career. Recent releases include Closure/Continuation and The Harmony Codex respectively. One of Wilson’s first loves was electronic music by Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. He and his teenage friend Simon Vockings made electronic music under the name Altamont, formed in 1983, recording direct to tape. The band had only limited success. Fifteen years later, having released four albums under the Porcupine Tree name, Wilson released the first Bass Communion album as a solo project. Wilson has experimented with synthesisers and sequencers, particularly on his most recent solo albums The Harmony Codex and its remixed offshoots Harmonic Distortion and Harmonic Divergence. But Bass Communion is a different kind of music, less electronic and more about sounds sourced from analogue instruments and samples, often field recordings or samples. In his book, Limited Edition of One, Wilson says the work of Bass Communion owes a great deal to Brian Eno’s definition of ambient music, which has its origins in French composer Erik Satie’s Furniture music. Where Wilson differs from Eno and Satie is they both created music which is, ‘almost there in the background to be ignored, musical wallpaper, which I don’t totally subscribe to.’
A question arises; how is music defined? Most dictionary definitions include references to rhythm, melody and harmony, but Wilson enjoys challenging his listeners – and himself. His work under the name Bass Communion can be a difficult listen, as it lacks the musical conventions and structures and signposts that usually help listeners on their journey. But it can ultimately be a rewarding journey. In his book, Wilson describes the early music of Tangerine Dream, and also Nurse with Wound’s 1998 album Soliloquy for Lilith, in words that could also apply to Bass Communion,
“You don’t need melody, rhythm or harmony; you just need the right thing to work as an emotional trigger, and even a single sound has the power to do that. A sensory experience, a particular taste or a smell, can set off a chain of memories”
Wilson recorded Bass Communion’s Ghosts on Magnetic Tape at his No Man’s Land home studio between May and August 2003. It’s the fourth Bass Communion album, following on from the albums Bass Communion I – III. It was re-released in its fifth pressing in January 2024, described as, ‘the best selling Bass Communion release… rated by some people (including Steven Wilson himself) to be one of his best albums, becoming quietly influential in the experimental music scene.’
In a fascinating interview with Geoff Kieffer of the Porcupine Tree fanzine Carbon Nation in 2004, Wilson revealed many details about the album that don’t seem to be available elsewhere. He told Kieffer that he found some old 78s in his parents’ attic, and it was recordings from those that he used as around 80% of the source material for his album. As he didn’t have a record player that could play the records at the correct speed, he had to play them much slower, at 45 rpm. Behind the crackles and surface noise from the old, heavily scratched records, he heard,
“…the ghostly sound of music coming through…[which] created something in my mind. It almost felt like the dead trying to communicate through the noise…”
This formed a link in Wilson’s mind to the phenomenon which has been described by Dr Konstantin Raudive as Electronic Voice Projection; (EVP). According to him, voices of the dead can be heard on thousands of tapes that he recorded in a silent room. Through the tape hiss, he said voices of famous 20th century politicians could be heard, including Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. Jolyon Jenkins wrote an article for the BBC website about this in 2013.
Wilson added some piano to the recordings, and the result can be described as electronic music as it is heavily processed, but the source material means that the album retains a human, organic quality. This gives it a spiritual quality, an ability to touch the soul rather than move the feet – it’s ironic that one of the major streaming services categorises the album as ‘dance’; it’s difficult to find any rhythm to dance to on this record.
Wilson said that the album is unusual as a Bass communion recording in two respects: he wrote the album fairly quickly over a period of a few months, and it has an overriding concept – expressed by the title – rather than being a collection of unrelated songs. It consists of five tracks, numbered I to V, which suggests that the whole album is a continuous suite of pieces, just as ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ from Pink Floyd’s 1975 album Wish You Were here is actually a nine-part suite which bookends the album.
Part I
The opening track begins with unearthly drones, and a distant birdcall. A restless piano motif, consisting of only four notes with an occasional passing note, has no clear rhythm. It’s haunting, like a tentative message from another world. Spectral music, like very early Tangerine Dream, seems to be a faint impression of melodies from beyond the grave. Some listeners may be reminded of the ghostly music in the bar scenes in the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining. The music disappears into static from a 78 record, and the track abruptly ends as if communication from the other world has suddenly been cut off.
Part II
Female voices rise in a huge, cathedral-like acoustic, singing unintelligible words. A simple rising phrase is repeated. The track has a haunting, ghostly quality, spiritual in a broad sense but not linked to any specific religion despite the cathedral atmosphere. One of the most affecting, emotional tracks on the album, perhaps because the voices give a deep sense of humanity.
Part III
This could be the soundtrack to a horror film. Wilson told Geoff Kieffer that Bass Communion is strongly influenced by the soundtracks to David Lynch films like Eraserhead (1977) and The Elephant Man (1980). The track features an industrial, ominous drone, full of dread. There’s what sounds like the clicking of a Geiger counter, a device that detects radioactivity, perhaps presaging a nuclear war. The track ends with ghostly noises, which leads to a crescendo of impending doom, then suddenly stops.
Part IV
If the previous track is about approaching nuclear war, in this track the war seems to have arrived as the Geiger counter speeds up. A single, desolate high note is soon joined by other, equally bleak tones, ineffably sad, depicting a post nuclear landscape. The track feels like music from a film – Wilson has often said he would love to create a movie soundtrack, and his Porcupine Tree album Deadwing is based on a film script that he and director Mike Bennion wrote. There’s a touch of Tangerine Dream at the end, but without the rhythmic pulse of their later albums. This is the most recognisably ‘musical’ of the tracks, so would perhaps be a good starting point for a new listener. The slowly drifting chords gradually resolve, gently swelling with a subtle moving bass, before it disappears into 78 rpm silence.
Part V
This is the longest track on the album. It begins with low-voiced ghostly music beamed from another dimension. Distant thunder and rain appear, sometimes obliterating the rest of the track. Theo Travis, who has played sax, flute and duduk on some of Wilson’s solo albums is the only other musician who appears on the album. The flute he plays here sounds like whistling, or wind through a fence; something human, or a creature pretending to be human? This could be another film soundtrack. The persistent rattling noise of a machine adds to the feeling that this could be the soundtrack to another David Lynch movie. The track ends with the sound of a shimmering bright light hovering above, whilst ambiguous notes appear below, creating a feeling of infinite sadness, drifting despairingly downwards.
This is a challenging album, which may only unfold its secrets after repeated listening, but it can then become a rewarding and even spiritual experience. It’s perhaps best enjoyed late at night on headphones, with eyes closed… and ears and mind open.
Sources
Kieffer. G. A interview with Steven Wilson regarding Bass Communion (Carbon Nation, October 2004, retrieved 6 August 2024; archived here)
Wilson, S., Wall, M., Limited Edition Of One – How To Succeed In The Music Industry Without Being Part of The Mainstream (Constable, an imprint of Little, Brown April 2022)
Jenkins, J. The people who think they tune into dead voices (BBC News 25 March 2013)