ReviewsReview: Steven Wilson’s Requiem For A Village
+ Steven Wilson Q & A
After the fantastic, celestial voyage that was The Overview, Steven Wilson comes back down to earth for his latest record, Requiem For A Village (a third studio album in 3 years), to pull back the net curtains and observe the comings and goings in a fictional village which exists somewhere in space and time.
Wilson is at his best when embracing a concept and, lyrically, the 12-track album fuses folk/horror tropes (the place you can never leave, mysterious disappearances) with the vocab of the village life (market day, parades, fetes, chapels) while also introducing us to a handful of oddball characters, including Ezra the sonic explorer (who records every sound that he makes), the drunkard Rowan (who has chronic Tourette’s), and the twins who live in the attic.
Opener ‘Swirl in a Lark’s Eye’ sets the scene with church bells giving way to an ominous, nightmarish clatter before we’re calmed by the distant voices of children singing in a school choir. A narrator (actor David Tennant, no less) offers some poetic punctuation; a spoken word introduction that ends with: “The village is alive”. The cue to get this show on the road. The Scotsman pops up a few times during the 54-minute Requiem For A Village, for more words of wisdom (all penned by XTC’s Andy Partridge, who also writes or co-writes lyrics for five songs).
Requiem For A Village, album’s title track, is its showpiece; the album in microcosm. A near eight-minute tour-de-force that moves from eerie falsetto introduction to monster bass/guitar riff backed with incredible drum-and-bass style drumming (played live by Russell Holzmann). The lyrics are brilliant (on this track, all Wilson’s work): dark, evocative, sometimes amusing and, scariest of all, they occasionally allude to some shameful episodes of our recent past, here in the UK, at least: “A child is standing at the side of the ‘70s, bound to people who can do just as they please”. The juxtaposition of idyllic village life and what goes on in the shadows couldn’t be clearer with lines such as: “In the woods a man from the mental institution / making movies from independent distribution”. There’s a chanty middle section – “Living in the country we’re all fucked up / all dressed up like monkeys we breed like dogs…” – that’s deranged, hilarious and thrilling all at once. This track is exceptional – think ‘Paranoid Android’ meets ‘Camberwick Green’.
A similarly ambitious number is ‘Now Departing’. It starts off almost acapella before a melodic piano-based track emerges, reminding villagers of their fate: “You might get on a train but you’ll never escape / because all destinations end here”. Three minutes in and we break for 150 seconds of angry, head-nodding guitar rock (with satisfying handclaps) before we return to the chorus/refrain.
The third and final track on the album that runs to over seven minutes is ‘Murmuration‘. It begins with foundation-shaking bass, pulsating analogue synth (like a flying saucer is trying to land in your back garden), before an acoustic guitar takes over as The Narrator (David Tennant) is back with some musings. A wistful-sounding Wilson sings “Here I am, drawing back the curtains on my stage” as ‘Murmuration’ edges towards a very satisfying and melodic chorus section (what the kids call an ‘earworm’, these days). Wilson’s double-track vocals are supported with finger-plucked acoustic guitar and synth strings. The last minute of the song drops us back into the spooky ‘otherness’ of The Village, as Katherine Priddy sings part of an old English folk song called ‘Cruel Sister’ (which is about a girl who drowns her jealous sister). Priddy’s vocals are layered with effects and echo and it’s rather unsettling, very much like those scenes in horror films where someone sings ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’ to a music-box style backing (the deluxe version of the album features ‘Cruel Sister’ in full as part of a bonus track).
There’s plenty of moments to take a breather from these long, complex songs, and clearly much thought has been put into the running order, or the listener’s ‘journey’. The beautiful two-minute instrumental lament of ‘Hiraeth’ is one such example. It pairs simple piano with some heart-breaking slide guitar, with bonus Mellotron and the odd dog barking in the background. This leads into ‘On Chapel Slope’, which was the second ‘single’ from the album. Another highlight from Requiem For A Village, this song (lyrics by Andy Partridge) pops up in the middle of the record. It’s a slow-paced number, has a wonderful meditative vibe and benefits from lots of space in the arrangement. The payoff is a very haunting refrain (think Jerry Goldsmith’s ‘Ave Satani’) of “You’ll stay with us / as stones / evermore”, a reference to how even the souls of the dead can’t leave the village (or something). This is reprised and even more chilling on album closer ‘The Old God is Buried’. A version of this song with Katherine Priddy on lead vocals is a bonus track on the deluxe edition (correct decision to go with SW’s version).
A word on the production and ‘sound design’. It’s exceptional. Wilson has embraced an organic approach: analogue synthesisers; real drums; picking up instruments he might not be familiar or proficient with (apparently there are some). Guitarist Randy McStine (who featured on 2023’s The Overview and the last Porcupine Tree tour) often doing the same thing and requested at times to play his instrument ‘as found’, even if that meant it was not perfectly tuned. This idea simultaneously is anti ‘classic rock’ where everything must be perfect; it cocks a snook at AI (would AI choose to produce something that is out of tune?) and echoes the overarching theme (dissonance in the music / discord in the village). In addition to this, the album is full of atmospheric details and layering (wind blowing, bells ringing, a PC modem does its business on an old dial-up connection, ghost-like murmurings, static interference, tribal drums etc). Cinema for the ears.
Requiem For A Village is highly conceptual, but probably wisely, it’s not an album that is driven by a specific narrative. Those of us still trying to work out ‘the plot’ of Bowie’s ‘Nathan Adler Hyper-cycle’ from 1995’s Outside can breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Village’ is more episodic than that. In the individual songs, we drop by unannounced and stay for a cup of tea. We’re a fly on the wall for the comings and goings of the local folk whether they be “pig-eyed kids vaping down by the nursery” (‘A Requiem For A Village’), “the one with the stumbling eye” (‘The Same River Twice’) or Iris, the “belligerent streamer” (‘Now Departing’).
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InterviewIf you enjoy shedding a tear to music, the new album isn’t as moving as the probable SW peak of Hand.Cannot.Erase., but in truth, not much is ever going to come close to the based-on-a-true-story heartbreak of that 2015 album. But interestingly, if you listen to Hand.Cannot.Erase. just after Requiem For A Village, the former now seems insanely glossy by comparison. In terms of sound, you could say ‘Village’ is Tusk to Hand.Cannot.Erase.’s Rumours. Both are great, but it rather vindicates Wilson’s approach for the new album, because the small company of players (8 of the 12 tracks are mostly just Steven and Randy), the Eno-esque ‘rules’, the grit, the discord… it works brilliantly. It feels fresh, exciting and real.
Wilson has that rare gift of being able to come up with great ideas – concepts, songs, arrangements, production, sound design – and then actually execute on the promise. It’s not easy to do; you need the vision, the skills to deliver, the single-mindedness and control to not let the ideas get diluted in the studio. As a singular vision, from idea-in-his-head to finished recording, Requiem For A Village is an outstanding achievement. It’s up there with Steven Wilson’s very best, and perhaps, the very best. For example, the evocation of The Village and what it represents is as compelling and nightmarish as Kate Bush’s The Ninth Wave, her legendary conceptual ‘side two’ of 1985’s Hounds of Love. Yes, it’s that good.
Review by Paul Sinclair. Requiem for A Village is out now.
Order the blu-ray with the SDE exclusive slipcase or the 2LP green vinyl via the SDE shop using this link or the button below. Scroll down for Steven Wilson Q & A!
STEVEN WILSON Q & A
SDE: Where did the germ of the idea for the album come from? There’s a film of the same name, of course.
Steven Wilson: Obviously I stole the title… but the film itself is a very obscure mid-70s film which I saw in a BFI restored version. It’s a very odd little film but it’s in the tradition of folk-horror. The most famous film in that tradition, for most people, would be The Wicker Man, although there are many more examples in cinema and in fiction; a lot of short stories in the 20th century and even going back to the 19th century. I’ve always loved that tradition. You’re a similar generation to me, and for me the project also expanded out to the feeling I had about a lot of children’s TV in the 70s, which have a similar sense of, and I use this word a lot, ‘otherness’, which you just don’t see very often these days. Things like Bagpuss, Fingerbobs, Mr Benn, and all these shows I grew up with feel like they come from a similar place of ‘otherness’. This feeling of the insular village community that has this sense of somehow being outside of mainstream society, mainstream culture. Kids growing up now in the internet age don’t really get to experience that… probably no great loss to them [laughs].
But that feeling when i used to go on holiday with my parents where you’d be in really cut off villages in the north of Scotland, or Wales, or Cornwall – you did feel a bit like an outsider. So that album comes a bit from that sentiment. The countryside being ‘alive’ which is something comforting but also threatening, in its own way.
Tell us about guitarist Randy McStine, who played on your last album, The Overview. How did you come to work with him?
He played with Porcupine Tree on our reunion tour, a few years ago. It wasn’t me that found him, it was our drummer Gavin [Harrison]. I think he’d seen Randy play for a band that opened for one of his other projects and he recommended Randy as PT ‘auxiliary’ guitar player. So I got to know him, and what I love about Randy – and it’s a fairly rare thing these days – is that while he’s obviously a brilliant guitar player and he can shred with the best of them – almost uniquely, he understands about sound design and that sometimes, getting the right sound is as important, if not more important than the notes you play. Sometimes playing one note, with the right sound can be more potent than playing 50 notes with that horrible ‘shredder’ tone.
The last couple of records you seem to be leaning in more to being a tighter unit, with you playing more and not bringing in loads of studio musicians. Why have you done that?
Good question. I’ve veered away a lot from what you might call the classic prog rock tropes – I think I’m looking for more interesting sounds, rather than the traditional classic rock thing which you’d have heard on albums like Raven [The Raven That Refused To Sing, 2013] and Hand.Cannot.Erase. [2015]. I think I’ve become more interested in finding more unusual sounds, so I started investing in a lot of analogue synths, modular synths… which I really don’t understand, but they are much more inspiring. I guess I’ve embraced that style of approaching things, not like an idiot, but to be more politically correct, I’d say approaching them like a child. And I’m finding that more interesting than using virtuosos, which I’ve been very fortunate to work with. I mean, just the idea of working with Russell Holzmann who’s the drummer on this album; he doesn’t come from the rock tradition at all, he’s a drum-and-bass drummer. His speciality is being able to play beats, originally programmed electronically, that were supposedly ‘unplayable’.
How did David Tennant end up on the album?
Pretty early on, I decided I wanted this narration aspect to the record, like an ‘eye in the sky’. This voice would be the connection to you the listener and this construct, this village with all these weird characters in it. And I think that comes from 70s children’s TV. Because you would always that voice, whether it was Oliver Postgate or Brian Cant, and it would always be [adopts jaunty, TV presenter voice] “Hallo children, shall we go to the village today? Let’s see who we can find…” So this is something I had imagined for this record and always in my mind it was going to be a regional accent because it just made sense – Scottish, Welsh, Cornish. I imagined it being Ivor Cutler, actually. Of course, no longer with us, but that eccentric, but soft spoken Scottish accent. So Andy [Partridge] was writing the narration as we were going through and I was reading them myself, in a terrible Scottish accent, and it was only right towards the end of the process that me, Andy and Penny, my manager, started thinking about who was going to do it. And then a friend reminded me that about 10 years ago David Tennant had been photographed – I think it was for GQ, or one of those men’s magazines – wearing a The Raven That Refused To Sing T-shirt. So that was the lightbulb moment. He must know who I am and, potentially, likes the music, and he’s Scottish and a brilliant actor! At that point we contacted him through his agent and straight away got the ‘yes’ back. And he did a phenomenal job. It’s now impossible to imagine it being anyone else, now.
With Requiem For A Village you are continuing your on-off collaboration with Andy Partridge on this record. Why did you bring him in again?
After Andy did such a brilliant job on the small section I asked him to do on The Overview, we’d already talked about potentially collaborating a bit more and it just seemed like the perfect project for him, also, because Andy, famously, has also grown up in what you might call parochial environment, coming from Swindon, and if you look at the XTC catalogue he’s written many times, about rural England. The cover of English Settlement alone tells you that he was perfect for this job. And that’s what he wants to do now. He doesn’t want to make his own music, he wants to collaborate.
The lifecycle of an album is something we’ve discussed before. The idea of the release of the record being the end, almost an anti-climax. You’ve released the three digital singles for Requiem For A Village, you’ve organised playback events, but any more reflections on this? Is the approach constantly changing?
Inevitably. I don’t entirely understand it and I’m probably not supposed to understand how the music industry has shifted. There’s also a sense of I’m partly insulated from it due to the kind of music I play and the audience I have, and this obviously applies to you and your demographic in that we’re partly outliers in a way. Your audience and my audience are people who still like physical product, your tagline says it all [‘Holding The Music in Your Hands’]. But I don’t understand it so that’s why I hire people to do socials etc. I have to hire people. I don’t have any of these things on my phone anymore – Facebook, Twitter, etc. – but I still approve and take part in the creative content for it.
There’s no place on mainstream TV, is there, where you could perform one of your songs? I suppose Later… with Jools Holland, is probably the only one, but I don’t know why they haven’t engaged in all these years?
I don’t know why, and I sound like I have a massive chip on my shoulder – which I slightly do [laughs] – but I think I must be the only British artist that consistently has top 3 albums and has now sold out seven nights at the Royal Albert Hall that has not been on Jools Holland. I don’t really understand why but I think it comes back to the style of music I’m perceived to play. But for me I think it’s just a case of continuing to create interesting content, interesting performance-based videos, putting them up on YouTube and hoping that they will content. I don’t really like the notion of a single, anyway, because for my music it’s like taking a scene out of a movie.
Would you consider performing the whole album live at some point?
I’d love to do that. I was really happy with how the tracks came across at the Albert Hall – we did three, about 20 minutes of music. The simple answer is I didn’t think about it, really. But now of course everyone’s asking me, so it’s something I’m beginning to think about.
What’s next for Steven Wilson?
There’s lots of things up in the air. Next year is my year for getting back into some of my collaborative projects: there’s new Storm Corrosion material in the works, there’s new no-man material, a few new PT songs [Porcupine Tree] we’ve been developing over the past few years…
Will there be another Porcupine Tree album?
I think there will be, eventually. The challenge is always, what can we do with the PT sound that isn’t just going to be more of the same. We’ve written 3 or 4 songs over the last couple of years. We get together a few times a year and knock out a song each time, basically. I think we have found a fresh approach to it, so we’ll carry on with that process next year, definitely. I’d like to think we’ll play some more solo shows next year – I was very happy with the Albert Hall shows. The question has come up about whether maybe we can do that show in other countries – Paris, Berlin, Rome. There’s lots of remix work, of course. Can’t say what!
Thanks to Steven Wilson who was talking to Paul Sinclair for SDE
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