Continued from page 24
STEVEN WILSON
Home Invasion: In Concert
at the Royal Albert Hall
(Eagle Vision/Universal)
Former Porcupine Tree frontman
Steven Wilson isn’t one to let moss grow
under his feet. The progressive rock icon
has made a name as an in-demand remix-
er for influential artists including King
Crimson and Roxy Music, as well as
groundbreaking psychedelic pop heroes
XTC and chart-toppers Tears for Fears.
Wilson’s own prolific output outside of the
now-disbanded Porcupine Tree has
included work with Blackfield, No-Man,
and acclaimed solo projects like 2017’s To
the Bone. Home Invasion documents a spe-
cial night on the To the Bone tour, filmed on
home turf before a devoted crowd at
London’s venerable Royal Albert Hall. The
forward-looking Wilson delights fans with
bracing new songs and unexpected - but
welcome - backward glances. The set list
features most of To the Bone including the
hopeful “Nowhere Now,” uplifting and
transformative “Pariah” as a duet with
Israeli singer Ninet Tayeb, and the chilling
violence that lurks next door in the cau-
tionary terrorist tale “People Who Eat
Darkness.” In addition, Wilson dips sur-
prisingly generously into the Porcupine
Tree catalog, drawing upon modern prog
favorites from In Absentia, Fear of a Blank
Planet, and Deadwing, including epic
“Arriving Somewhere But Not Here” and
“The Sound of Muzak” that casts Wilson
as a successor to classic acts like Pink
Floyd and Marillion. Wilson’s liquid blues
and spiraling arpeggios are hallmarks of
the virtuosic flights of deft guitar heard
during “Ancestral.” The lushly-lit footage
shows Wilson confidently striding the
stage in bare feet, enjoying communion
with his audience while being simultane-
ously lost in his own world among talent-
ed bandmates. Veteran Miles Davis key-
boardist Adam Holzman lends funk and
soul to the captivating complexity of
“Home Invasion.” Kajagoogoo bassist
Nick Beggs provides the urgent rumble
underpinning the frenetic “The Creator
Has a Mastertape.” A traditional Indian
dance troupe joins the band for a dazzling
display
of
kinetic
joy
during
“Permanating.” Preceding this self-pro-
fessed “awesome pop song,” Wilson defies
musical snobbery among his prog-rock
audience and coaxes fans to join in cele-
bratory disco dancing. The true-life horror
of violence in the name of religion resur-
faces next during “Detonation,” inspired
by the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in
Orlando. The show concludes with the
haunted “The Raven that Refused to
Sing,” a forlorn ghost story of isolation,
control, and regret. Wilson has acknowl-
edged that much of his material is hardly
uplifting while noting that finding kindred
spirits can lend strength against despair to
those who need it most. Despite the
music’s meticulous precision, real-world
paranoia and gothic gloom, Home Invasion
is filled with thrills, abandon, and euphor-
ic spirit.
– Jeff Elbel
8
TYRANNY OF DAVE
The Decline of America
Part 3: Silence of Brooklyn
(Mekkatone)
Chicago outsider pop iconoclast and
former Piñataland member Dave Wechsler
returns with the latest enthralling install-
ment of his The Decline of America series.
The appeal of “Fallen Astronaut” rests in
its juxtaposition of Wechsler’s subdued
beat-poetry/sprechgesang delivery and
the song’s slacker jazz and Americana
underpinnings,
featuring
Aaron
Zemelko’s double bass. The combination
suggests Bob Dylan fronting Elvis
Costello’s great roots-pop band from
1986’s King of America LP. The title cut
“Silence in Brooklyn” adds savvy Paul
Simon-styled wordplay and the celebrato-
ry tropicália motion of songs like “Late in
the Evening” to sprightly girl-group
vocals. The song describes rising tides and
a submerged New York, where the natives
are left to adapt to the new normal while
the rest of the world watches on YouTube.
Draw parallels to the Camp Fire on the
Left Coast as you listen. Wechsler has
referred to these cinematic songs as
“scenes from a country that had it all and
decided it was probably more fun to just
blow it up.” The laconic melodies and
accompaniment of female doo-wop vocals
and upright bass during “Lost Canal” and
“Utah” suggest a fondness for the whimsi-
cal nature of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks.
The loping “Lost Canal” is given a para-
doxical sense of urgency by restless per-
cussion that percolates throughout the
arrangement. “Storm” is a manic mix of
Latin rhythm and funky keyboards with a
kinship to solo efforts by former Talking
Heads frontman David Byrne. Chicago fix-
ture Nora O’Connor is the featured vocal-
ist on the gentle country-folk charmer “All
This 4 U,” replete with Velvet
Underground references and eulogizing a
broken American landscape. Pedal steel
weeps throughout the train shuffle of
Doug Stone’s “The Scapegoat,” as
Wechsler sings a breezy song about
recrimination, ruin, and isolation. “Who
has clipped the lion’s wings,” Wechsler
quixotically repeats. Silence in Brooklyn is a
real grower, rewarding repeated play as
the listener unpacks Wechsler’s artfully
crafted, gloomy lyrical portraits and
absorbs clever arrangements that are both
left-of-center and appealing. You’re
unlikely to hear anything else quite like it,
but adventurous ears will love it.
– Jeff Elbel
8
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