STEVEN WILSON Says His New Album Is 'Almost Finished': 'It's A Very Strange Record'

In a new interview with Jonathan Cornell of Immersive Audio Album, six-time-Grammy Award-nominated musician, songwriter and producer Steven Wilson spoke about his upcoming follow-up to last year's "The Overview" album. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Yeah, it's almost finished, actually. It's a very strange record. It's a complete opposite of 'The Overview', which was a very lush, very big record and also about a very large — well, the largest possible subject matter you can imagine, literally the cosmos as we know it. This is a much more insular record. It's still very conceptual. It's still very experimental and the pieces are — well, it feels like another single piece of music to me, in that sense. But it's much more angular and experimental in a way that I'm really excited about. And that's all I can really say at the moment. Very different again, yeah."

Wilson, who is well known for his remixing work, which he began in 2009 as a sideline to his very successful career as a musician and producer, also talked about his production approach on the upcoming LP. He said: "The way I make records is, by definition, pretty layered. I love the possibilities of the studio. I love overdubbing. Now on this particular new record I'm making, there's a lot of what I would call sound design elements. Now, that's not to say they haven't been on all my records, but let's just say I've taken it to another level on this record. There's a lot of sound design. There's a lot of sound effects that kind of place you in a particular place and a particular feeling. And there's a lot of use of lo-fi sounds as well, keeping things sometimes in mono… But I'm making a lot of decisions on this album to keep things very small and mono, but also knowing that those things can be just as impressive in surround because you've got something very small and mono. You can place it very discretely in a particular place in the room. Sometimes when you have things that have been tracked four or five times, they're kind of coming from everywhere. But sometimes what's also nice in spatial audio is having something that's just mono and being able to place it very, very particularly in a particular place. And that can be just as effective in spatial as the big immersive sound. So I'm using a lot of mono reverbs, spring reverbs. It all kind of relates to the concept of the record, which I can't really talk about at the moment, but keeping things sounding almost old and rusted. And I think those are gonna be really effective in spatial audio, because I've got a lot of those kind of elements. I'm playing a lot of instruments I've never played before. I'm playing the drums on some tracks myself. I'm playing violins, oboes, harmoniums. It's a very — I don't wanna say it's a nostalgic-sounding record, because it isn't. There's a lot of use of modern technology too. But, yeah, it's gonna be a strange record, and I think it's gonna be a really interesting — the kind of [Dolby] Atmos mix I've never done before, in the sense of all these little details and things that will be very discretely, particularly placed in a speaker or a position in the room."

Earlier this month, Wilson announced the launch of Headphone Dust, a new online platform dedicated to offering high-resolution, 5.1, and Atmos/spatial audio editions of Wilson's work. The platform's first release is "Impossible Tightrope: Live In Madrid", which captures the final night of the 2025 European leg of Wilson's "The Overview" tour and includes the full two-hour show mixed in Stereo, 5.1 and Atmos. There are no plans for a physical release of this recording; it is exclusive to Headphone Dust. Also available now is a brand new Dolby Atmos mix of Wilson's 2013 album "The Raven That Refused to Sing", alongside high-res editions of "The Overview", "The Harmony Codex" and more. A new Atmos mix of 2015's "Hand. Cannot. Erase." will follow "soon".

Headphone Dust is open now at headphonedust.store.

Wilson is one of contemporary music's most visionary auteurs — a six-time Grammy nominee, revered producer, and boundary-pushing composer whose work fuses cinematic ambition with emotional depth. He first gained recognition with PORCUPINE TREE, pioneering modern progressive rock, and has since crafted a dynamic solo catalog that includes "The Harmony Codex", "Grace For Drowning" and "Hand. Cannot. Erase."

A musical polymath and spatial audio pioneer, Wilson has remixed the work of KING CRIMSON, TEARS FOR FEARS, PINK FLOYD, XTC, BLACK SABBATH, GRATEFUL DEAD, CHIC and THE WHO, among many others, bringing new dimension to classic albums with his meticulous touch. His own music wrestles with existential questions — alienation, technology, mortality — delivered with both poetic lyricism and sonic boldness.

His most recent album, "The Overview" (written, produced, and mixed by Wilson),is a high-concept, long-form experience inspired by the cosmic awe of space and the human condition. Featuring immersive visuals and dense, genre-defying compositions, the album is Wilson at his most ambitious, combining influences from PINK FLOYD to gothic horror, electronica to orchestral grandeur.

Photo credit: Kevin Westenberg