Steven Wilson released a new song today in collaboration with Mariusz Duda, vocalist and bassist of Riverside and Lunatic Soul, in honour of deceased fan Alec Wildey who succumbed to cancer recently. The song’s lyrics are a poem that Alec wrote, and after being set to music by Mariusz, has been performed by both Steven and Mariusz.
Alec Wildey was a huge Steven Wilson and Mariusz Duda fan who worked for them by promoting their albums in street teams. He was diagnosed with cancer in December last year, and after an unsuccessful round of chemotherapy, lost his battle to the disease on August 25th. Wilson wrote on his Facebook page that he plans to donate proceeds from the sales of the song to the medical centre that took care of Alex and various other cancer support related charities. Alec asked Steven Wilson to adapt one of his poems, The Old Peace, into a song in July this year, but sadly, could not live to see it come to fruition. However, Steven Wilson said that he had made a promise to Alec and wanted to fulfill it.
Steven Wilson wrote on his Facebook page, “Alec Wildey was a young fan who for several years had been passionate about our music, actively helping out with promotion as a leading member of the Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson street teams from the tender age of 17, and setting up a street team for Mariusz in 2010. Some of you will almost certainly have met Alec, as he attended many of our concerts. If you did you will have found him to be a sensitive, extremely intelligent and articulate young man. He was a devoted and enthusiastic music listener and movie watcher, as well as a self-published poet, with a very bright future ahead of him.”
“It is now available to download from Burning Shed for a modest sum in both high resolution FLAC and mp3, with 50% of the proceeds going to the medical centre that cared for Alec during his final months, and 50% going to other cancer support group charities. We would be happy if as many people as possible paid for the official download (so please don’t share it or upload it to any other sites) in order to raise as much as we can to help others that find themselves in the same awful situation.”
The song can be downloaded here. Steven Wilson is currently in studio recording the next album for his solo band, a follow up to last year’s critically acclaimed The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories). He recently shared a 6 minute long studio update from AIR Studios in London which included included previews from the upcoming album. The opening 45 seconds of the video show various photos of the band recording, taken by photographer and band artist Lasse Hoile as a strummed guitar part, reminiscent of Porcupine Tree, plays in the background. The rest of the clip shows the band experimenting with various sounds and Steven Wilson explains what kind of an album to expect with the album featuring various pop, electronic, jazz and progressive elements.
The album is scheduled to hit the stores in February 2015 and features the same lineup as before, with Guthrie Govan on guitars, Nick Beggs on bass, Adam Holzman on keyboards, and Marco Minnemann on drums. You can check out the preview here.