Steven Wilson’s new album, Requiem for a Village, is designed as a film without images. Across 12 tracks and 54 minutes, the English composer and multi-instrumentalist creates an imagined British village that appears peaceful but is marked by strange characters, hidden mysteries and unsettling events. The album is set to arrive on streaming platforms November 6.
Wilson describes the record as a single, continuous piece rather than a collection of separate songs. Its music, atmosphere and narrative draw partly on folk horror, a genre that finds darkness in rural traditions, folklore and isolated communities. The story was written by Andy Partridge, former frontman of XTC and a frequent Wilson collaborator, and is narrated by Scottish actor David Tennant.
One influence was Children of the Stones, a 1970s British children’s television series about a village caught up in supernatural events. Wilson said he wanted the setting to feel as though it existed outside modern time, with an apparently quiet surface concealing something sinister.
The album follows The Overview, Wilson’s previous year’s release, which focused on space through two extended suites. He said the shift from the cosmos to a small village was intentional: he prefers to move away from the themes and sounds of his previous work rather than repeat a successful approach.
Requiem for a Village combines progressive rock, folk and electronic music. Its nostalgic premise also led Wilson to change his recording process. He sought to preserve human imperfections, using analog synthesizers and acoustic instruments, including violin, oboe and drums, despite not knowing how to play some of them. He said he wanted the performance’s accidents and flaws to remain audible, rather than relying on studio tools to correct them.
Wilson has criticized modern recording technology for making music too polished, saying it can discourage musicians from taking risks. He also called artificial intelligence harmful. For this album, he said, he approached unfamiliar instruments almost like a child, learning by simply playing them.
Wilson has released six albums since 2021, including work with Porcupine Tree. Alongside his solo career, he is known for restoring and remixing classic albums by artists including King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Yes, Tears for Fears and Roxy Music, and for his work with immersive audio formats such as Dolby Atmos. Porcupine Tree, which began as an almost solo project in 1987, went on hiatus in 2010 and returned in 2022 with Closure/Continuation.
Sources: Folha Ilustrada.