Steven Wilson releases a new track: listen to "On Chapel Slope", the second single from "Requiem For A Village"

Steven Wilson continues his journey into the dark, timeless world of “Requiem For A Village”. The British musician has released “On Chapel Slope”, the second single from his new album, out November 6th, accompanying it with a video that digs even deeper into the macabre, surreal imagery built around the record.
The track opens with bells and religious chants that seem to come from afar, before giving way to a delicate guitar arpeggio and a spoken-word vocal. Life and death gradually blur into one another, following a circular logic that finds its most explicit expression in the video. In it, Wilson plays a groom celebrating his wedding in the church of the mysterious village at the heart of the story. To witness the ceremony, the dead rise from their graves and join the guests, intoning the line “You'll stay with us, as stones evermore”. But the macabre procession holds one last twist: as they leave the church, Wilson and his wife appear now elderly and deceased, and it is the wedding guests themselves who accompany them to their respective graves.

“On Chapel Slope” also offers a taste of the particular philosophy behind Wilson's making of “Requiem For A Village”. During recording, the British musician chose to do without artificial intelligence and the correction tools normally available in the studio, embracing imperfections and mistakes as an integral part of the music. This approach also led him to try his hand at instruments he doesn't really master, including violin, oboe and drums.
The album was recorded alongside multi-instrumentalist Randy McStine and drummer Russell Holzman, while Katherine Priddy appears as vocalist on “Murmuration”. Two major names add further cinematic depth to the project: Andy Partridge of XTC, who wrote the narration, and David Tennant, who provides the narrating voice.
Running 54 minutes in total, “Requiem For A Village” thus presents itself as a work suspended between British folklore, gothic undertones and the fantastical. After the cosmic vastness of “The Overview”, Wilson drastically narrows his focus: in place of deep space there is now a tiny British village that seems to appear on no map, populated by the living and the dead and governed by rules all its own.

“Requiem For A Village” is built around an imaginary village, a place that, in Wilson's words, “you won't find on a map and that can only be found if you're not looking for it”. The author describes it as “a film to listen to, 55 minutes long and divided into 12 scenes”, corresponding to the album's twelve tracks. At the heart of the project is also the desire to recapture a more physical, spontaneous and imperfect dimension of music. “I wanted to return to music where you can metaphorically hear the fingerprints. To insist on human gestures and imperfections, on things that can't be created with software. For example, using only analogue synthesizers, with all their unpredictability, or having instruments that aren't perfectly in tune,” Wilson explained. An approach that also led him to try his hand at instruments he doesn't usually play: “This also led me to pick up the violin, the oboe, or try to play drums, playing things I actually don't know how to play, but still managing to get something out of it that inspired me in ways I didn't expect. Approaching music with a sense of innocence and seeing where it would take me. And it took me to the Village”.
“Requiem For A Village” will be released on November 6th on CD, Blu-ray, double black vinyl and double coloured vinyl.

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