Events

[POP] Enigmatic Brit Steve Wilson, perhaps best known as the central figure in Porcupine Tree, is on tour this year supporting his fifth solo disc, To The Bone, also his debut for Caroline International, which dropped in 2017. Apparently inspired by the progressive pop of his youth — in particular, Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love, Peter Gabriel’s So, Talk Talk’s The Colour of Spring and The Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears — the resulting album is unusually upbeat relative to his previous work. For an artist that has always equated sadness with beauty, Wilson is out on a limb. But take it with a grain of salt, because although these songs may veer toward a more contented sheen, Wilson is still calling all the shots and doing things very much his own way, covering difficult topics and complex emotional states, just perhaps a bit truncated and with punchier choruses. For two tracks, he wrote in parts for previous collaborator Ninet Tayeb, an Israeli musician who also appeared on his Hand. Cannot. Erase. album. Their work together on “Pariah” and “Blank Tapes,” along with the single, “Permanting,” make for To The Bone’s high points. Wilson is at Town Ballroom on Tuesday, November 27.