In the summer of 2004 I wrote a long post on my then website
about the No-Man album "Flowermouth". It was an unashamedly gushing
love poem to a piece of work that remains my favourite album. The original
article described the start of the love affair thus:
"I bought it on
the back of hearing “Simple” on a demo CD given away with a magazine in 1994. I
kept coming back to the song and every time I heard it I loved it more and
more. I bought the album on a trip into town one weekday; little did I know my
life was about to change. I put the CD on and sat down. I moved about an hour
later once the CD had finished. Can you name the last CD you sat and listened
to all the way through on the day you bought it? I didn’t move. I simply stared
at my stereo, awe struck that such a thing of beauty existed."
(I still have that magazine cover CD as I later realised it
contained a different mix of “Simple” that I haven’t heard anywhere else. If
only I’d had enough foresight to also go out and buy the album on vinyl – it can
go for a pretty penny in this over inflated ‘vinyl resurgence’ market.)
Anyway, I bought almost every No-Man release from 1994
onwards and picked up a copy of their first album too. I joined their mailing
list (snail mail in those days) and ordered some of the first Burning Shed
releases in 2001. Whilst on the mailing list I received a postcard (as was the
way back then) advertising a new project by Steven Wilson called “Bass
Communication” and caught increasing references to a band called “Porcupine
Tree”. However, these were mere sideshows to the main draw and I ignored them
(although bizarrely I did buy “Flame” by Barbieri/Bowness – an album that seems
inexplicably ignored and has never been reissued).
And then these side projects seemed to gather momentum and
No-Man’s output began to tail off. I guess that “Returning Jesus” was the
artistic zenith and, whilst it was not an absolute valedictory, it has been
hard to surpass. I moved onto Tim’s solo work and continue to enjoy it very much - it almost fills the No-Man shaped hole in my life. But make
no mistake: I am a first and foremost, a fan of No-Man.
Consequently, I now find it strange when I see promotional
material and hype stickers attached to No-Man releases referring to “Porcupine
Tree’s Steven Wilson” - with a brief mention of some Bowness fellow. It is even
stranger to see people weighing up No-Man’s efforts as “a place to dig deeper
if you admire Steven Wilson’s work.”
I freely admit to never having heard any music by Porcupine
Tree or any of Steven’s solo albums. Weird, given that I have always followed
Tim’s efforts outside of No-Man – but I don’t intend on changing this approach.
Primarily because No-Man deserve all my attention (there’s no such thing as one
listen when it comes to the new vinyl edition of “Returning Jesus”) and secondly
because I am afraid I will like Wilson’s ‘other’ work; and my bank balance can’t
take a hit like that.
