Deform to form a star (Steven Wilson) (LP 4869 - 4883)

Steven Wilson  Pure Stars (Vinyl, Bootleg) ***

Steven Wilson Insurgentes  (CD+DVD, Kscope Records, 2008) **** 

Storm Corrosion  Grace For Drowning (CD, Kscope Records, 2011) ***** 

Storm Corrosion  Storm Corrosion (CD, Roadrunner Records, 2012) **** 

Steven Wilson  Get All You Deserve (CD+DVD, Kscope Records, 2012) *****

Steven Wilson  The Raven That Refused To Sing (and Other Stories) (CD, Kscope Records, 2013) ***** 

Steven Wilson  Drive Home (CD, Kscope Records, 2013) **** 

Steven Wilson  Cover Version (CD, Kscope Records, 2014) ***

Steven Wilson  Hand. Cannot. Erase. (CD, Kscope Records, 2015) *****

Steven Wilson  Transience (CD, Kscope Records, 2015) ****

Steven Wilson  4 1/2 (CD, Kscope Records, 2016) ****

Steven Wilson  To the Bone (CD, Caroline International Records, 2017) *****

Steven Wilson  The Future Bites (CD, Caroline International Records, 2021) ***

Steven Wilson  The Harmony Codex (CD, Virgin Records, 2023) ***

Steven Wilson  The Overview (Vinyl, Fiction Records, 2025) *****

Genre: Prog rock

Places I remember: FOPP, HMV, Fives, JB Hi Fi, Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Drive Home (The Raven..)

Gear costume: Permanating (To the Bone)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8

Active compensatory factors: If you type Steven Wilson into my search bar, an awful lot of entries come up for him and his various musical vehicles. Some of which have already featured in lengthy posts. Yes, I'm talking about you Porcupine Tree, Blackfield, No-Man, and Bass Communion. In 2008 Steven decided to embark on a solo career as well as maintaining interest in those other projects. 

Pure Stars is a bootlegged solo performance - live at the Jah-Pan Club, Tel Aviv, Israel in January 2003. It's a very intimate performance where he takes requests and plays some Porcupine Tree songs on his acoustic guitar. His between song patter is terrific and he comes across as a cool dude, albeit a nerdy cool dude. His attempt at Blackest Eyes on the acoustic is a treat!

Insurgentes was the first album under his name, and it's a bit of a triumph. If sounds a lot like Porcupine Tree style prog in places, with some echoes of Pink Floyd and even some Zappa-esque guitar angularity featured on it along with some drone and patently experimental approaches. It's an important album for him in that his name is above the door and he's free to do whatever he wants.

Grace For Drowning came next, in 2011. This time it doesn't sound much like Porcupine Tree. Instead, it's quite a jazzy album with some beautiful passages along its double CD length (he doesn't do anything by halves). It feels like another big leap forward to my ears.

While working on Grace For Drowning, Steven was also working with his mate, Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth. That work emerged after Grace under the project name Storm Corrosion.

It wasn't metal machine music at all, instead it was acoustic in approach while also retaining an experimentalism of spirit. The Guardian review got things spot on, stating the album "...could confound and irritate as many as they enchant, but as an immersive journey into uncharted territory, Storm Corrosion is an unequivocal triumph".

Get All You Deserve is a live package (2xCD plus a DVD) of a live show in Mexico City while on the Grace For Drowning tour. Apart from a couple of ambient pieces, all of the songs performed are from his first two solo albums - Insurgentes and Grace For Drowning.

It's a terrific package which captures the band at a peak - the nearly 30 minute version of Raider II is exceptional for the interplay between the band. Those 30 minutes fly by!

The next studio album is The Raven That Refused To Sing (and Other Stories). Another big album - he is certainly a prolific over-achiever. It's a superb jazz fusion album with the group of familiar players from the Grace tour locked together throughout.

The Guardian was again very sympathetic, deciding the album contained "all manner of wildly evocative soundscapes, melodic crescendos and mellotron-drenched fever dreams".

Drive Home was technically an EP, rather than an album. It's a compilation of music videos on a DVD, previously unreleased tracks, and live versions of several songs on the CD. The seven tracks make it one track longer than The Raven...so it's a very very generous EP!

Cover Version, a combination of Steven Wilson originals and covers,is an interesting detour. It leads with Thank You. It always takes me a while to figure out that it's not a Steven Wilson original. Other notable versions are created for A Forest and Sign 'O' The Times and Donovan's Lord of the Reedy River.

Hand. Cannot. Erase. was his fourth solo album. It's a brilliant concept album, inspired by the case of Joyce Carol Vincent, a young woman living in a large city who died in her apartment and no one missed her for over two years, despite her having family and friends. 

Everything about H. C. E. captures my attention - the music is superb, like The Raven... and the story follows through the very poignant subject matter with a light touch. A masterpiece!!

I've included the compilation, Transience, as it neatly collects 13 songs from the 2003 to 2015 solo period. It's worth it for the rerecording of his song Lazurus alone! It's a Porcupine Tree song originally, so technically this is a cover. It's followed by Drive Home - another of my favourites. Overall, it serves as an excellent introduction to his solo work.

4 1/2 is another EP. So named because it came after his fourth solo album (The Ravern...) and To The Bone, his fifth. This time there are 6 songs  - he's very generous! 

All were songs written during the sessions for The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) and Hand. Cannot. Erase. All are superb prog rock songs. He was been in a rich vein of form from 2011 onwards.

That high quality continues with To the Bone. This time it was a much more commercial approach - with the accent on shorter, poppier songs while still retaining a prog feel, similar to Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, and Radiohead's approach: experimental, progressive, but with melodic hooks.

A whopping five singles were released to support the album - Pariah, The Same Asylum As Before, Song of I, Permanating, and Refuge. No surprise then that this album became his biggest seller.

I've already written about the live album released in 2018 that came from the To the Bone tour - Home Invasion: In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall (you can find it here), so the next album in my collection is The Future Bites. This was his fifth solo studio album, coming after a four-year gap because of the covid-19 pandemic.

The album takes a prog approach in terms of its concept - a pulse taking of the here and now, rather than a dystopian vision of the future. The progressive pop music from To the Bone morphs more into synth-pop this time, as it leans on more electronic sounds than previously.

I'm not a big fan of that approach, hence the three star rating, but I respect his ideas and on-going creative, progressive search for new things which slide between various genres. That search, and the leaning on electronica, continued with The Harmony Codex - his seventh solo studio effort, in 2023.

As the Classic Rock reviewer said, The Harmony Codex 'is an hour-plus of music that glides seamlessly from skittering digital soul to Gilmouresque soft guitars to colossal riffing to eerie spoken word to honeyed tunefulness.'

That brings us more or less up-to-date with last year's The Overview. A masterful old school prog concept album that has a 20 minute song suite on each side. It was high on my end of year list of the best albums.

The concept centres on the 'overview effect', a cognitive shift astronauts experience from looking at the Earth from space. The music and the ideas are complex and reward repeat visits. It's one of those records that I will return to many times in the future. 

The Pink Floyd-isms are often a lazy comparison by reviewers, but this album is probably the one that takes their influence and runs with it the most. That's high praise btw.

Where do they all belong? The completist impulse in me will continue for Steven Wilson's albums (he has a new solo one out this year) - whether that's solo or his many projects, although I draw the line at buying re-releases with extra bonus tracks. I'm not made of money!

Canyon in the rain (Jonathan Wilson) (LP 4867 - 4868)

Jonathan Wilson  Gentle Spirit  (CD, Bella Union Records, 2011) ****  

Jonathan Wilson  Fanfare (CD, Bella Union Records, 2013) **** 

Genre: Folk rock 

Places I remember: FOPP, JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Moses Pain (Fanfare)

Gear costume: Love to Love, Cecil Taylor (Fanfare)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8

Active compensatory factors: I was alerted to the delights of Gentle Spirit by Mojo Magazine. Sure enough, it's a luscious folky trippy sound that Jonathan Wilson serves up which is totally captivating. He sounds a little like Israel Nash at his dreamiest.

It's a long album - some 13 songs (78 minutes), so it takes me a while to adjust when I listen to it. Woe Is Me is my favourite but the rest of the album blends in some beguiling sounds. AllMusic sums it up well: it's an easy, breezy, endearing listen with plenty of seductive earworms to draw the listener down a sonic rabbit hole and into another world temporarily.

If anything, Fanfare is an even better effort. The vocals are stronger, and clearer for one thing. For another - it goes deeper into the genres, like jazz, folk, country and pop, and any album that has the nous to cover Sopwith Camel gets my vote.

Where do they all belong? He has three other albums post Fanfare for me to track down.

Farewell my friend (Dennis Wilson) (LP 4866)

Dennis Wilson  Pacific Ocean Blue (Vinyl and CD, Caribou Records, 1977) *****  

Genre: Rock

Places I remember: Marbecks Records, JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: River Song (POB)

Gear costume: You and I (POB)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8

Active compensatory factors: Oh Dennis! What a talent! Of all the solo albums by The Beach Boys members Dennis has the only 5-star rating in my collection. A brilliant actor - Two Lane Blacktop is one of my favourites. And what a handsome guy!! Look at the cover to his solo album Pacific Ocean Blue. As it is with Carl, I love the idea of Dennis Wilson.

All that and such a tragic life. I'm only interested in the music, so you'll need to go elsewhere for the lurid details of his life away from music. Suffice to say, his self-destructive impulses deprived the world of a supremely talented guy (what a family!!).

I love The Beach Boys (and so did Dennis), but the reason Pacific Ocean Blue is so great is because it is light years away from what the band was doing. The songs, like Dennis, are multi-layered and honest to his vision. The album is unique, certainly within the Beach Boys world, but also in the annals of west coast/ Californian rock. It also gets better with age, even though it reeks of the seventies (it took seven years to age and then arrive).

Where do they all belong? The CD version includes outtakes from his unfinished second solo album - spelt either Bamboo or Bambu. As it was never completed, it doesn't require inclusion in the countdown of my collection. 

Bright lights (Carl Wilson) (LP 4864 - 4865)

Carl Wilson  Carl Wilson (Vinyl, Caribou Records, 1981) ****  

Carl Wilson  Youngblood (Vinyl, Caribou Records, 1983) ****  

Genre: Rock, pop

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Heaven (CW)

Gear costume: Seems So Long Ago (CW), Givin' You Up (Youngblood)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8

Active compensatory factors: Carl Wilson, who sadly passed away from lung cancer in 1998, only produced two solo albums (he was also part of a trio with Gerry Beckley and Robert Lamm). That's because he knew his position in life was as a member of The Beach Boys first and foremost.

His first solo album, simply called Carl Wilson, is a great effort which displays many of his talents - from the rocker to the quieter side - all is convincing to my ears. I love this record, yes partly because I love the idea of Carl Wilson. He's not the radical genius of Brian and he's without the bad boy/self-destructive tendency of Dennis, instead he's the middle presence (his vocal range as well as his influence on the band).

Side two of the album has more of the kind of Beach Boys material that fans would gravitate towards, but I also enjoy the grittier songs on side one. It's not a perfect record, but Carl's vocals are definitely one-of-a-kind.

The same approach is used for Youngblood - as one critic said "It's guitar-based mainstream rock, with soul and gospel roots, a far cry from the blue-eyed barbershop harmonies popularized by the Beach Boys".

BTW - Carl is the only Beach Boy on these two records.

Where do they all belong? I'm on the lookout for the Beckley Lamm Wilson album - Like A Brother.

Love and mercy (Brian Wilson) (LP 4856 - 4863)

Brian Wilson  Brian Wilson (Vinyl, Sire Records, 1988) ***  

Brian Wilson  I Just Wasn't Made For These Times (CD, MCA Records, 1995) *** 

Brian Wilson  Imagination (CD, Giant Records, 1998) ***

Brian Wilson  Gettin' In Over My Head (CD, BriMel/Rhino Records, 2004) *** 

Brian Wilson  Brian Wilson Presents Smile (CD, Nonesuch Records, 2004) **** 

Brian Wilson  Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (CD, Walt Disney Records, 2010) *** 

Brian Wilson  No Pier Pressure (CD, Capitol Records, 2015) **

Brian Wilson  Live at the Roxy Theatre (CD, BriMel Records, 2010) ***  

Genre: Pop 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records, Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Your Imagination (Imagination)

Gear costume: Melt Away (Brian Wilson)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8

Active compensatory factors: While I'm verging on being a completist for The Beach Boys, I do have some gaps in my Brian Wilson collection. That said, I have most of his solo recordings.

His traumatic past has been well documented over the years, even by him in his autobiography (which I recommend). You can get a summary here if you want. Amid the trauma came his first solo album - Brian Wilson in 1988.

The first and last tracks are the obvious standouts, along with the gorgeous Melt Away. Love and Mercy was released as a single and it became a song he'd return to in concert later on. The final song is Rio Grande which is much more experimental than the rest. So much so, that it sounds like it was part of SMiLE.

The strengths of the album are his vocals and the harmonies. Obvious, but true. It's not The Beach Boys, but it's close. It's the only record that came from these years so it's worthy, even though it's tainted by Eugene Landy's presence.

I Just Wasn't Made For These Times is a compilation of re-recorded songs that served as a soundtrack to a documentary by Don Was. It's a fine collection (mostly Beach Boys songs except for Melt Away and Love and Mercy from Brian Wilson), but I do prefer the originals with The Beach Boys.

After Orange Crate Art (a classic album by Van Dyke Parks and Brian reviewed here), Brian's third solo studio album was Imagination in 1998. 

I think it's an under-appreciated album. The songs are mostly good, the musicians compatible and the harmonies spot on. It does exactly what you'd want from a Brian Wilson album. It's good enough on its own without the couple of covers of Beach Boys songs (Let Him Run Wild is a pale imitation).

Gettin' In Over My Head is his fourth solo album. Many of the songs have origins back in the early nineties when they were part of an abandoned follow up to Brian Wilson. It's notable for a plethora of famous guests - Paul McCartney, Elton John, Eric Clapton. Carl Wilson even makes a posthumous appearance on Soul Searchin' - an abandoned Beach Boys song that stands out here. Carl was all class!

Again, I think it's under-appreciated. Maybe reviewers were expecting another Pet Sounds every time Brian released a solo album. That's an impossible standard to live up to. 

Basically, Gettin' In Over My Head produces the kind of music I'd expect from a genius kind of guy who's been through some traumatic times and come through them largely intact. In many ways it's a wonder he can produce an album at all.

It's interesting comparing Brian Wilson Presents Smile with The Beach Boys version (The SMiLE Sessions). The difference between the two versions is that Brian's are all new studio versions (following a live performance), so no Beach Boys apart from Brian appear on it. AllMusic summed up the reconstituted SMiLE as 'a jaunty epic of psychedelic Americana, a rambling and discursive, playful and affectionate series of song cycles. Infectious and hummable, to be sure, and a remarkably unified, irresistible piece of pop music, but no musical watershed on par with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Wilson's masterpiece, Pet Sounds.

The actual three act SMiLE opus is again summed up well by AllMusic: The work that evolved divides into three sections: SMiLE begins with Americana, which takes the dream of continental expansion from the old Spanish town saga of "Heroes and Villains" to the landing at Plymouth Rock and, finally, the end of the frontier at Hawaii; it continues with a Cycle of Life that progresses from the virginal grace of "Wonderful" to the simultaneous peak and decline of the creative life on "Surf's Up"; and ends with an environmental cycle called The Elements, which includes "Vega-Tables," (Earth), "Wind Chimes" (Air), "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (Fire), and "In Blue Hawaii" (Water).

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin is a heartfelt tribute by Brian and it's a success. I'm not familiar with Gershwin outside of Woody's Manhattan soundtrack, so I'm not qualified to compare or pass judgement. It sounds good, Brian is in good voice and the orchestral accompaniment is top notch.

No Pier Pressure aims to update BW for the 21st century. Yikes! Runaway Dancer is the worst offender - it doesn't even sound like him! So much of the album feels like Brian is an added afterthought. The tracks with Al Jardine, Blondie Chaplin and David Marks are much better though. So - an uneven, weird set for what turned out to be his last real solo album.

The live double set Live at the Roxy Theatre is the only live Brian I need. It's in direct competition to the Beach Boys 50th anniversary set (see here) and The Beach Boys win in a landslide. It's hard for Brian to carry a whole concert and although he's a congenial presence and the band harmonise well, you can't beat those combined Beach Boys harmonies. They are like nothing else on Earth.

Where do they all belong? I'm missing a copy of Lucky Old Sun from 2008. Van Dyke appears so it's well worth a search. I'd also grab a copy of In the Key of Disney from 2011 if I came across it. 

Fittingly, Carl Wilson, and then Dennis Wilson are up in the next posts.

Carried away (Marlon Williams) (LP 4855)

Marlon Williams  Live at Auckland Town Hall (CD, Caroline Australia Records, 2019) ** 

Genre: Alt pop, NZ Music

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Vampire Again

Gear costume: I'm Lost Without You 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8

Active compensatory factors: Marlon Williams is blessed with an amazing vocal ability, which I first became aware of via Later...with Jools Holland. I thought Marlon was great on that show and yet, he's not someone I've fallen head over heels over (unlike my bros - three Marlon albums have been Album of the Week for the WTWMC).

I did decide to buy this live album one day at JB Hi Fi. Maybe my thinking was that it would be a good way to collect all his best songs in a live setting (I retain a huge soft spot for anything recorded in the Auckland Town Hall).

Whatever the reason, the intimate location certainly brings out the best in Marlon and his band. Ultimately, though, two CDs of fairly dour, emotionally draining, gothic music is more than I can handle.

Where do they all belong? I've now played it twice and I doubt there will be a third outing for it.

Big sky country (Chris Whitley) (LP 4854)

Chris Whitley  Living with the Law (Vinyl, Columbia Records, 1991) ***  

Genre: Blues, blues rock

Places I remember: Mail order music club.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Living with the Law

Gear costume: Poison Girl

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8

Active compensatory factors: This album has survived many culls over the years because the sound he gets from his guitar is amazing. Every time I played it to decide whether to flick it on or not, I realised how good it was.

This was his debut album, released in 1991. It features Chris on a variety of guitars - national, acoustic, slide, pedal steel, and electric. The songs are his, but it sometimes feels like these are delta blues standards newly brought to life. The topics are dark and doomy but as with many blues songs - I find them really uplifting.

Where do they all belong? Sadly he passed away from lung cancer in 2005, aged 45 - way too young! His 17 album catalogue remains his legacy. I'm on the lookout for others, including his album Dirt Floor.