Tag: Nick Beggs

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Steven Wilson – Impossible Tightrope – Live in Madrid – Album Review

★★★★★

Wilson launches his Headphone Dust online store with a stunning live recording made one The Overview Tour in Madrid

The cover of Impossible Tightrope. Image © Hajo Müller. Design by Carl Glover, Aleph Studio

Impossible Tightrope: Live in Madrid is Steven Wilson’s fourth solo live album, following Catalogue / Preserve / Amass (2012), Get All You Deserve (2012), and Home Invasion: In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall (2018). It was recorded on 13 June 2025, at La Riviera Madrid, at the final concert of the European leg of The Overview tour.

Headphone Dust Logo and Mission Statement © 2026 Headphone Dust

According to Discogs.com, Wilson launched his Headphone Dust store 25 years ago as a platform for online and mail-order sales of his solo work in his own name and other projects, such as Bass Communion. On 6 February 2026, Wilson relaunched the platform as a digital-only store, as ‘a passion project to bring immersive audio to fans worldwide.’ The first release was Impossible Tightrope: Live in Madrid. According to the website, ‘there are no plans for a physical release of this recording; it is exclusive to Headphone Dust.’ Since then, there have been several releases, including more of Wilson’s solo albums, and albums by Gentle Giant, Hawkwind, Theo Travis and Richard Barbieri.

The Overview

The Overview

The concert begins with a complete performance of The Overview, starting with Objects Outlive Us, Wilson’s strong falsetto, and the rich soundscaping that introduces the alien on the moor. The opening piano theme for ‘The Buddha of the Modern Age’, with rich backing vocals joining Wilson’s impassioned vocals, builds to an impressive climax. The ‘Objects Meanwhile’ section, with lyrics by Andy Partridge of XTC, contrasts humdrum daily lives with cosmic phenomena and has a lovely flow, aided by Nick Beggs’ melodically inventive bass lines. A thunderous bass solo from Beggs leads to superbly syncopated drums from Craig Blundell and Iron Maiden-like twin guitars from Wilson and Randy McStine. This feels like a mature, practised performance from a band at the top of their game.

There’s a gorgeous moment with lovely, contemplative guitar arpeggios and a gentle solo. The main 19-note piano theme returns, and the track gradually builds to a vocal climax as we leave the Earth, provoking a huge cheer from the audience. The proggy instrumental section is superb, with fiercely virtuosic drumming from Blundell and a stunning guitar solo which duets with the bass. The music falls away as we return to the ghost on the moor, and Randy McStine’s distinctive guitar solo is enhanced by Blundell’s spacey drumming. Wilson’s piece recorded largely solo in the studio has become a stunning work for live rock band.

The second part of the new album is the title track, The Overview. It begins with swirling electronics and spoken word inserts from Wilson’s wife, Rotem. The electronics drop, and Adam Holzman’s robust piano chords take over before more electronics appear, this time heavily treated with changing filters. A contemplative section shows the protagonist floating in space, with a slightly gritty tone to Wilson’s voice that stresses the tragedy of his loving wife’s death years before. McStine’s guitar threatens to break up in his next solo, before becoming more bluesy. The rich backing vocals, reminiscent of Wilson’s work with Porcupine Tree, create gorgeous harmonies. Rotem returns, and we are now deep in space.

A fiercely funky section, with hand claps, leads to a deliciously flowing solo from Holzman. The song ends with a replacement for Theo Travis’ sax solo that appears on the album; he also played it live in London in return for Wilson lending him an original Mellotron for use on Soft Machine’s latest album Thirteen. It’s replaced here by mellow synth and guitar, with a touch of early Pink Floyd psychedelia. We have been on a fascinating journey to the other side of the universe

The Harmony Codex
Hand. Cannot. Erase.
Insurgentes

After the interval, the album features tracks from Wilson’s solo albums and a couple of deep cuts from his work with Porcupine Tree. These are grouped together by album below (the order in which they were played can be found at the end of this post).

Insurgentes

Harmony Korine begins with bright, shimmering guitars and Beggs’ robust bass. The epic chorus is haunting, enhanced by Blundell’s heavily syncopated drums. This track is the closest to the original version, except for Blundell’s delightfully unexpected drum roll at about three minutes in.

Holzman covered Abandoner in an instrumental version on his live album The Last Gig. Wilson’s live version begins with soft-grained vocals, spacey drums, and Holzman’s delicate electric piano. McStine provides an anguished guitar solo and eerie backing vocals. A brief, contemplative instrumental passage leads into a section of vigorous noise rock featuring energetic drumming by Blundell. The song returns to the thoughtful instrumental mode. As Wilson says at the end, ‘Lovely stuff!’

The Harmony Codex

The title track of Wilson’s seventh solo album, The Harmony Codex (reviewed in detail here), begins with an explosion and audience cheers. I first heard the mesmerising repeated synth patterns at the album launch at EartH in London, and I wrote at the time,

‘It truly felt as if the music was being beamed from a distant planet or from a dying star, creating a feeling of deep nostalgia for lost worlds but also a deep sense of joy.’

The sounds of the hammered dulcimer and electric piano are added in this live version, making the sparkling sequences sound even more ethereal and otherworldly. The track’s heavily electronic feel evokes the same emotional response as the electronic opening of The Overview’s title track.

What Life Brings is a gentle ballad that shows Wilson at his melodic best. Holzman provides a new piano intro and jazzy piano parts, while Blundell brings robust drums, as he does on the original. The Floydian guitar solo leads to a subtly epic climax, ‘Love it all and hold it in your hands.’

The live album’s title track, Impossible Tightrope, is also the name of a chapter in Wilson’s book, Limited Edition of One, in which he explains why he doesn’t want to spend all his time trying to please a particular audience, or working with a band,

I don’t want to jump permanently back on that tightrope of trying to keep everyone happy while not compromising my own ‘vision’ the whole time. It does take a toll.

The live version is more robust than the original, with fiercer drums and guitar, while keeping the syncopated one-note bass line. Wilson’s falsetto vocals are more prominent than on the original track, which are more ethereal and heavily manipulated. Holzman ends the song with a fruity-toned, jazzy synth solo.

Hand. Cannot. Erase.

Above the applause, the mysterious high synths of Home Invasion (the title of Wilson’s previous live album) float in. There’s a phenomenally proggy, syncopated opening, with dirty-sounding, funky synths from Holzman and drum flourishes from Blundell. Later, Holzman plays a juicy synth solo with plenty of virtuosic runs and pitch bends. There’s a superb instrumental section, with funky lines, then a gorgeous, spacey sound on the words ‘Another day on Earth.’ The band is incredibly tight here. The guitar solo, played by Randy ‘The Mink’ McStine on Regret #9, is a little less flashy than Guthrie Govan’s stunning version on the original album, but it’s still excellent.

The first encore, Ancestral, begins with distinctive percussion from the original version and a new, thoughtful piano part. Beggs adds a gently funky bass line, which gives the track a quiet momentum at the start. Wilson’s subtly nostalgic vocals here are superb. Instrumentally, the track is very strong too, with a stunning guitar solo and proggy, syncopated sections that snake back on themselves; the audience enjoys clapping along in time. The breakdown section with Holzman’s eerie keyboards is spine-chilling. The full-on metal guitar riffs are invigorating.

Porcupine Tree – Voyage 34 and The Sky Moves Sideways

In December 2020, during the global pandemic, Wilson released a YouTube version of Porcupine Tree’s Voyage 34 as part of The Future Bites Sessions, recorded in lockdown at his home studio. At the time he wrote, ‘Look out for a more extended updating of Brian’s 34th LSD trip on my tour next year.’

Sadly, the 2021 tour was cancelled due to the pandemic, but the material will be toured later this year by former Porcupine Tree bass player Colin Edwin and the band’s touring guitarist, John Wesley, under the name Voyage 35.

The Floydian riffs at the start of Wilson’s live version draw cheers and clapping, and psychedelic keyboards are soon added. The track becomes a version for the complete band, with a quicksilver guitar solo and a new, virtuosic bass line from Beggs. It’s only a pity that this version isn’t longer – the original single was around 30 minutes – but the constraints of a concert setlist understandably cut it short. But it’s great to hear the spoken-word opening: ‘This remarkable, sometimes incoherent manuscript…’

In contrast, the other Porcupine track, Dislocated Day, is longer than the original. It comes from The Sky Moves Sideways, released 30 years ago. It’s one of the highlights of the live album. Blundell’s drumming is superb, Beggs’ bass is again incredibly funky, and there are warm, mellotron-like synth washes, Iron Maiden-style twin guitars, and a frenzied guitar solo. Perhaps best of all, there’s a lovely breakdown section, in which the excitable crowd decide to cheer rhythmically along; Wilson cheerfully points out, ‘We’re supposed to be coming down here, guys… Do it quietly!’ The crowd duly obeys; a huge cheer at the end suggests the audience doesn’t feel too chastened.

4½
The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories)

4½

The instrumental track, Vermillioncore, one of the album’s highlights, is a thrilling exercise in the power of musical repetition. It features spacey, psychedelic keyboards and a stunning ostinato bass line. The guitar solo is fractured and angular, and the synth lines have a warm Moog-like tone. Beggs’ tone in his bass solo is reminiscent of the great Chris Squire. The performance has a thrillingly visceral drive. It ends with long applause and a chorus of ‘¡Olé!, ¡Olé!, ¡Olé!’ From the Spanish crowd, as they call for an encore (the first one is Ancestral – see above).

The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories)

The second encore is the title track of The Raven That Refused to Sing. I admit that this will always have a special place in my heart, as it was the first of his tracks I discovered about ten years ago. It’s become a bit of a favourite of Wilson’s as an encore, and it’s easy to see why; its melancholy majesty is enthralling and deeply moving, and Wilson’s plaintive cries of the single word ‘Please’ pierce the soul. A fitting ending to a riveting live album.

Tracklist

  1. Objects Outlive Us (23.29) from The Overview
  2. The Overview (18.51) from The Overview
  3. The Harmony Codex (10.18) from The Harmony Codex
  4. Home Invasion / Regret # 9 (10.54) from Hand. Cannot. Erase.
  5. What Life Brings (3.51) from The Harmony Codex
  6. Voyage 34 (5.51) from Voyage 34 (Porcupine Tree)
  7. Dislocated Day (8.54) from The Sky Moves Sideways (Porcupine Tree)
  8. Abandoner (5.06) from Insurgentes
  9. Impossible Tightrope (10.53) from The Harmony Codex
  10. Harmony Korine (5.12) from Insurgentes
  11. Vermillioncore (6.24) from 4½
  12. Ancestral (13.48) from Hand. Cannot. Erase.
  13. The Raven That Refused to Sing (8.33) from The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories)

Now Read on…

Steven Wilson – The Overview Tour – Live Review
Steven Wilson – The Overview – Album Review
Interview – Miles Skarin: Creating ‘The Overview’ film with Steven Wilson (revised post)
The Harmony Codex by Steven Wilson – Album Review
Steven Wilson – Album Launch and First Impressions of his Ninth Studio Album
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Steven Wilson – The Overview Tour – Live Review

Monday 12 May 2025

The London Palladium 

*****
Steven Wilson’s Epic Return to Solo Performance

Steven Wilson last performed as a live solo act in England seven years ago at the Royal Albert Hall in London, in a series of three concerts, one of which was later released as the concert film Home Invasion. That tour supported his fifth studio album, To the Bone, released in 2017. Since then, he has released three solo albums: The Future Bites (2021), The Harmony Codex (2023) and The Overview, released earlier this year. He tried twice to tour The Future Bites, but was twice thwarted by COVID-19.

In the meantime, to the surprise of many, he returned in 2022 with a new Porcupine Tree studio album, Closure/Continuation. Recent tours have been in support of that album – he played at Wembley Arena in London in late 2022, and at Castlefield Bowl in Manchester the following summer. He now has two touring bands: Porcupine Tree with Gavin Harrison on drums, Richard Barbieri on keyboards and Nate Navarro on bass; his solo band with Craig Blundell on drums, Nick Beggs on bass, and Adam Holzman on keyboards. The only common denominator, apart from Wilson himself, is the versatile American guitarist and backing vocalist Randy McStine.

Wilson did a short solo performance of tracks from The Harmony Codex at EartH in Hackney to mark the release of that album, but apart from that, this concert marks his return to his home town to play a solo gig. And he seems very happy to be home. Modestly describing himself as the worst musician in his band (if that’s true, that’s only because he’s surrounded by a group of phenomenal musicians), he acts as lead vocalist, and sometimes guitar and keyboard player. At other times, he’s more like the leader of a jazz band, bringing the other musicians in and at one point joining Beggs in a forensic but benign examination of Blundell’s drumming.

And the jazz analogy doesn’t end there. We are lucky enough to see the jazz saxophonist, flautist and regular Wilson collaborator Theo Travis performing for one night only (‘no expense spent’ quips Wilson) on two songs from Grace For Drowning: No Part of Me and Remainder the Black Dog. His playing is as inventive as it was in the stunning solo set he did at the Prog the Forest festival last December. He also plays in Permanence, the final section of The Overview, one of those gorgeous, profoundly contemplative songs with which Wilson has often ended his albums – Collapse the Light into Earth from Porcupine Tree’s In Absentia (2002) springs to mind. The latter song contemplates the aftermath of 9/11, while the former considers whether there may be green shoots of life on other planets or in other galaxies after mankind has destroyed the Earth; both are weighty subjects.

The jazz theme of the music continues into Adam Holzman’s keyboard playing. He shows his full jazz pedigree tonight (he was Miles Davis’s Music Director in the mid-to late 1980s), with lovely Fender Rhodes chords, exhilarating Moog runs, as well as rich Mellotron harmonies for the prog purists. Nick Beggs plays upright jazz bass on a couple of songs, and Craig Blundell’s drumming is fiercely syncopated, with some jazzy cymbal work. He drives the band with intense snare beats, and the physicality is visceral. It’s high but deserved praise to say that he has become to Wilson’s solo band what drummer Gavin Harrison has become to Porcupine Tree. Both drummers are amazing.

The concert begins with a complete performance of the two-part new album, The Overview. Projected behind the band is Miles Skarin’s stunning new film, which explores and illuminates the themes of the album. Seeing it at the IMAX launch in London revealed its pristine quality, but with strong concert lights and dry ice in front of it, the animated film seems to take on an almost 3-D quality. Having a live band playing in front of it makes this a truly immersive experience, of which both Wilson and Skarin can be justly proud. The pristine visuals are matched by the clarity of the live sound, which is superb throughout the gig.

From the opening few bars, it’s clear that Wilson is in excellent voice; his falsetto on the words ‘I incline myself to space’ is as powerful as it has ever been live. Three hours later, in the encores, his voice is as strong as ever. Instrumentally, despite his protestations, he is a powerful player. It’s great to see him showcasing his skills on the PRS guitars, which are beloved by his prog fans for their mellow and versatile tones. McStine matches his virtuosity, the two of them coming onto the apron of the stage to duet close to the audience.

Beggs is on stunning form too. The opening of Luminol from The Raven That Refused to Sing reminds us of the robust virtuosity and rhythmic precision of his playing. His sound is reminiscent of Chris Squire, the bedrock on which the sound of Yes was built for so many years. The song is an opportunity for Wilson and McStine to join Beggs in mellifluous three-part harmonies. It also showcases another jazzy element of tonight’s band: an extended improvisation at the end of the song. Beggs also shines in the driving instrumental Vermillioncore from the EP 4+1⁄2 . But perhaps the biggest surprise is that he and drummer Blundell perform the only Porcupine Tree song of the evening, Dislocated Day (from the early space-rock LP The Sky Moves Sideways) in such a blisteringly funky version.

Earlier, space rock is represented in a very different way, with Wilson playing analogue synths, spreading himself from one bank of synths to another like Rick Wakeman without the cape. His wife Rotem joins him on an evocative spoken word description of the Earth viewed from space, tying in neatly with the view of Earth from space described in the Overview Effect, in which astronauts are emotionally and sometimes spiritually affected when viewing the Earth from space.

This is a resolutely proggy evening. It’s fascinating to speculate what the abandoned tour for The Future Bites would have been like, with its much more electronic sound, but only one song has survived the Pandemic into this set list, King Ghost. Wilson graciously accepts that some members of the audience may be there with friends or family who are less prog-minded. His concession to them is to play the rocky ballad, What Life Brings (from The Harmony Codex), which he announces is only four minutes long.

But Prog Widows and others who like short songs shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security. Wilson announces at the end of the concert that there will be two encores, but one of them is fifteen minutes long. This is the prog epic Ancestral from Hand. Cannot. Erase. which is performed here in an uplifting version. On earlier tour dates, Wilson ended with an emotional song, Pariah from To the Bone. Tonight, he chooses an equally emotional song, the title track from The Raven, with Jess Cope’s powerful video behind him.

The audience pays rapt attention throughout the concert, aided by Wilson’s insistence that phones shouldn’t be used for photos or videos, which is largely respected. So we live in the moment, revelling in the joy of musicians playing at the very pinnacle of their game. It’s a privilege to be here.

The standing ovation at the end of the gig.

This post was updated on Thursday 15 May 2025 to add Theo Travis’s name,  and to credit Jess Cope for the video of The Raven That Refused to Sing

This post was further updated on 13 September 2025 to confirm that Adam Holzman worked with Miles Davis in the mid-to late 1980s, not the 1990s as previously stated

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Fragments by Trifecta – Album Review

*****

New Prog supergroup bring joy in fragmented times

Drummer Craig Blundell, keyboard player Adam Holzman and bass player Nick Beggs began playing together on Steven Wilson’s Hand. Cannot. Erase tour in 2015. They also joined Steven on his To the Bone tour in 2018 and 2019. When Steven went off for a cup of tea after a brief soundcheck, the three others would remain on stage to jam together, creating what they described as a ‘jazz club’. They recorded each other on their phones as they played, and decided to use these recordings as the basis of some of the songs for the new Trifecta project. The result is a version of jazz rock fusion, almost entirely instrumental, in a style described by Nick Beggs as ‘Fission! It’s like Fusion but less efficient and more dangerous … with fall out.’ The outcome is an explosion of joyful, melodic virtuosity.

Beggs and Holzman were due to tour with Steven Wilson again but tours due in 2020 and again in 2021 were cancelled due to Covid-19. Like many artists, the three members of Trifecta collaborated remotely during lockdown – Beggs and Blundell in England and Holzman in New York. But whereas the work of another Steven Wilson alumnus Richard Barbieri Under a Spell described darkly trouble dreams in lockdown, Trifecta cast a genial spell on tracks that they each completed at home before Holzman mixed the heady brew in his home studio. Further magic was sprinkled by expert mastering engineer Andy VanDette (who also worked on some of the Porcupine Tree albums). The light-hearted nature of the collaboration is shown by some of the tiles of the 15 ‘fragments’ that make up the album, such as ‘Clean Up On Aisle Five’ and ‘Nightmare In Shining Armour’. But don’t let that distract you from the serious levels of musicianship on display here.

Nick Beggs’ dry humour is evident on the only track that features vocals, the gently enticing Pavlov’s Dog Killed Schrodinger’s Cat, the lyrics of which he describes as ‘written from the perspective of a layman trying to understand quantum mechanics … and failing’. They include such memorable lines as ‘Wrestled to the ground by your quantum theory/ I’ve listened to your talk until my eyes grew weary’.

Despite the consistently high level of inventiveness and virtuosity shown by all three players, planting them firmly in prog rock territory, none of the songs are prog epics in terms of length; all of the 15 tracks are beautifully-crafted miniatures of around 3 minutes. The whole album is only 45 minutes long. Steven Wilson has recently called for a return to the shorter-form album, and his latest release The Future Bites lasts 42 minutes.

Opening track Clean Up On Aisle Five with its swirling keyboards, strong melody and powerful drumming is reminiscent of another prog rock supergroup, U.K. (John Wetton, Bill Bruford, Eddie Jobson and Alan Holdsworth) on their track ‘In the Dead of Night’, although without the impassioned vocals.

Other highlights include Proto Molecule with its amazingly funky bassline – worthy of Jaco Pastorius – evocative keyboard lines, syncopated jazz-funk riffing, and a delightful interplay between both instruments. There is more Jaco-style bass at the start of Nightmare in Shining Armor.

The Enigma of Mr Fripp cheerfully acknowledges its debt to Robert Fripp of King Crimson. It encapsulates all that is great about that band in less than three minutes. Nick Beggs plays Chapman Stick with Fripp-like intensity, the lines spiralling around each other. There are dystopian drums, sudden key changes, warm mellotron washes and rhythmic illusions. A complete King Crimson album in miniature. The track suddenly stops, delightfully segueing into the ultra-cool jazz keyboards of the next track Sally Doo-Dally.

Have You Seen What the Neighbours are Doing refers to the house next to Adam Holzman’s in the North Bronx, left empty when the man living there disappeared. It could easily have come from the soundtrack to a 1970s movie like Shaft. It begins with a disturbing film-noir scenario, with a looping funky bassline and luminous synths. There’s dirty distortion on the Fender Rhodes-like solo, adding to the sleaze. Holzman uses a similar sound on his recent live album The Last Gig.

The whole album is an unexpected lockdown delight that reveals its deep treasures with repeated listening. Two important questions remain. Are Trifecta working on new material, and will they ever tour? Hopefully the answer to both questions is yes!