He'll do it again: Steven Wilson will reinvent himself again and present his listeners with new tasks. "The Future Bites", the title of the upcoming album, sounds at first clearly more electronic than all his works before. But things are not that simple. It's not electronic music. When asked what his listeners can expect, the Englishman answers comprehensively: "It's certainly a challenge. It's a conceptual and experimental work. If you look at my last albums, they're a tribute to the past. 'Raven' was a tribute to the progressive era of the 70s. 'Hand. Cannot. Erase.' served the trade of the great classic concept albums. 'To The Bone' went back to the intelligent pop music of the 80s. But the new album is meant to exist only in the here and now. I wanted to break away from classic rock. On 'The Future Bites' I worked more with electronics, less with guitars. The album is certainly more direct than any of my previous recordings. It's very melodic and modern. But it still sounds like me. I was able to experiment without losing my musical identity."
The electronics on "The Future Bites" don't define the style of the album, but were the most important tool. Wilson: "You can also create warm sounds and create emotion with synthesizers. With the combination of guitar, bass and drums, everything has really been tried countless times. I found it hard to do anything with the guitar that I hadn't already done. Plus, technology is unceasingly advancing and always offering new possibilities."
What does "The Future Bites" contain? The short intro "Unself" is followed by the Prince-reminiscent "Self" (Wilson: "Prince is certainly one of my biggest influences. I had posters of him on my wall as a teenager!") and "King Ghost," which consists only of electronic sounds and Wilson's manipulated voice. "12 Things I Forgot" would fit perfectly on a Blackfield album. There are some uncharacteristically noisy guitar solos for Wilson. "I played those. 'The Future Bites' is definitely the most 'solo' album of mine. I played almost all the guitars, basses and keyboards myself."
