Reviews of Prog Rock, Classical Music, Art Rock and Jazz
Steven Wilson. Image copyright Kevin Westenberg Steven Wilson’s latest album, The Overview, is inspired by the emotional and sometimes spiritual experience that astronauts have described when they look back at the Earth from space, known as ‘The Overview Effect’. This article reflects on Wilson's space songs from his previous solo work. For an analysis of the space songs …
Continue reading "Steven Wilson’s Space Songs Part II: The Solo Years"
Steven Wilson. Image credit: Kevin Westenberg Lyrically I arrived at a point where I was no longer interested in writing about abstract concepts, like war, religion, space... etc. These are very personal and emotionally raw songs.Steven Wilson, on Porcupine Tree's Lightbulb Sun (2000) Steven Wilson's latest album, The Overview, is inspired by the emotional and …
Continue reading "Steven Wilson’s Space Songs Part I: The Porcupine Tree Years"
Tuesday 25 February 2005 BFI IMAX, London “It’s about death… in the nicest possible sense of the word.” ***** To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, the album has been touring the UK’s planetariums, reaching Jodrell Bank in Cheshire late last year. The showings have been immersive, with …
Continue reading "Steven Wilson – The Overview – Album and Film Launch with Q & A Session – Review"
I am pleased to announce that the Second Edition of my book, Porcupine Tree On Track, is now available to order from Burning Shed and other good bookshops. The new edition is fully revised and updated to include an in-depth analysis of Porcupine Tree's most recent album Closure/Continuation. "... [Holmes'] analysis is critical and well-balanced, …
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2024 was a stunning year for Prog Rock new and old The Cover of Living & Alive by Beatrix Players The Return of Beatrix Players Beatrix Players, led by Ms Amy Birks, made a welcome return to the progressive rock scene in late 2023 with the release of their album Living and Alive. In 2024, …
A melancholy disco masterpiece ***** Love you to bits is the seventh studio album by no-man, the long-running collaboration between Steven Wilson, frontman of Porcupine Tree and a solo artist, and singer and co-writer Tim Bowness, who is also a well-established solo artist. The band was formed in the late 1980s and signed to the …
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Steven Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt's 2012 'weird beautiful' collaboration re-released in a Dolby Atmos surround sound mix ***** The cover of Storm Corrosion painted by Swiss artist Hans Arnold. Steven Wilson said in his book Limited Edition of One that the painting is 'a riotously twisted bacchanalian scene that somehow evinced the dream-fever mood of …
Continue reading "Storm Corrosion by Storm Corrosion (2024 remix) – Album Review"
Semkina's haunting and eclectic second solo album ***** Singer songwriter Marjana Semkina is a member of the prog rock group iamthemorning with her Russian-born compatriot the pianist Gleb Kolyadin, both of whom are now resident in the UK. The duo have released several records, the most recent being The Bell (2019) and the EP Counting …
The Deluxe Edition of In Absentia (Image from Burning Shed) What happens when the music and lyrics to a song give out conflicting messages? The singer songwriter Marjana Semkina told Jeremy Allen in the July 2024 issue of Prog magazine that she likes writing songs, such as 'The Storm' from her new album Sirin, which …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten Track # 13: Drown With Me by Porcupine Tree"
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 …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten Track #12: Ghosts on Magnetic Tape by Bass Communion"