photo: Hajo Müller
Innerviews has another in-depth interview with Steven Wilson. About his new album The Harmony Codex and the concept of the never-ending staircase:
The album shares its title with a short story that was in my book released last year, A Limited Edition of One. The central conceit of that story is the idea that a brother and sister enter a building, a terrorist attack and explosion occur, and they can't exit the building. So, they're forced to go up the staircase. They get on it and it essentially becomes the M.C. Escher Penrose stairs of never-ending ascent. So, the story takes a turn from something based in reality to something based in surrealism with a very dreamlike quality. And I'm not going to say it was something I planned, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this metaphor of a never-ending staircase applies particularly to people in my age category. When you get to your fifties, you start to appreciate certain things about the passage of life.
One of those things I think you appreciate as you get older is that life is about the journey. It's not about the destination. It's not about arrival. It's about all of the things you encounter on the way. And very often a lot of the most significant things in life are the things you didn't plan or expect.
He is at the forefront of spatial audio - he is the go to guy for remixing classic albums - he just did The Who's Who's Next - and bringing them up-to-speed to Atmos. He hopes to bring that sound to his live shows:
I’m just thinking about it at the moment. It depends on the right venues being available. Spatial audio is coming into a lot more venues, but it’s still early days. There’s one in London and Paris that would be ideal. In terms of other cities, I think this could work in Germany, Holland, and Chile. In America, New York and Los Angeles would be the obvious places to try it out. It’s an experimental idea and I need to look at if it can work both logistically and financially. But it’s something I’d like to do and we’re beginning to talk about it now.
The Porcupine Tree tour to promote Closure/Continuation was a huge success. A live album will see the light of day next year:
We recorded the Amsterdam Ziggo Dome show from last November. It was very beautifully filmed and mixed. It was one of the biggest shows with about 12,000 people. It was a great night, and it’s a complete document of this period of the band. There will be a five-LP box set of the audio and a Blu-Ray. There might be a deluxe CD and Blu-Ray box set as well.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about this phase of Porcupine Tree is that in some respects, I’m not at the center of everything, and things actually happen without me. I’ve been able to let Richard Barbieri and Gavin Harrison take control of certain things, like working on this release. I’ve mixed the audio and approved the visual cut. It should be out at the beginning of 2024.
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