NO-MAN ALBUM FEELS THE LOVE
Two-song disco-prog epic Love You To Bits has been 25 years in-the-making.
“When you work with Steven nothing is out of bounds.”
Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness’s No-Man will close a 25-year circle with the release of seventh album Love You To Bits, which arrives on November 22 via Caroline International. It’s been 11 years since previous record Schoolyard Ghosts appeared, but Bowness tells Prog the wait could have been even longer.
“We tried a few recording sessions in between 2008 and 2018,” he says. “We came up with the core of the first song in 1994. It was going to be the start of the follow-up to our second album, Flowermouth.” When the duo changed tack, the proposed material no longer worked, and lay mainly dormant through several album cycles until Wilson told Bowness in 2017: “I’ve just found this on my hard drive – why on Earth aren’t we working on it?”
The duo invited a number of colleagues to contribute, including Wilson’s keyboardist Adam Holzman, Producers drummer Ash Soan and guitarist David Kollar. In a nod to classic vinyl record work, the album features two tracks – one for each side.“There’s a level of concentration that the classic 35 to 40-minute album is ideal for,” Bowness argues. “If you think of Yes’ Close To The Edge, it’s 38 minutes long, but there are so many ideas packed in.”
He recalls the experience of being “in the studio, trading ideas” as being like their early days. “One of the best things about working with Steven is nothing’s out of bounds,” he notes, describing Love You To Bits as their most complex work to date, even though it may sound like relatively straightforward disco-pop. “We love 60s and 70s singersongwriters, the experimental prog artists, disco music, soundtrack music, Trevor Horn’s production values. We love the ambition of Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love and Love To Love You Baby.”
He reports that schedules make touring unlikely in the near future, and that while they haven’t considered the idea of remixing the album themselves, they’ve had offers from other artists. Meanwhile, they are both working on their next solo projects.
“I think Love You To Bits might be our most genuinely progressive album to date,” he says. “Two long lyrically and musically related pieces that flirt with multiple genres and moods is definitely more Yes than Ed Sheeran!”