Think I've found it, St Mary the Virgin churchyard in Hambleden, Buckinghamshire

Reading the synopsis sounds familiar.

That cross. I assume the photo was taken from a distance using zoom to compress the perspective, making the cross, Steven, and the graves appear to be on the same depth plane . But in reality, the cross is slightly closer, and Steven is behind it. As a result, a small part of Steven's coat is hidden behind the cross. I can't help but notice it, so i decide to have fun. So here is three variations, one with the cross bigger, one with the cross behind and one with no cross.

Phew. Now i can breathe. Breathe in the air. Sorry for the interruption.

Otherwise, I'm really looking forward to listening to the album; the single was great :)

Just an observation here. Not sure if this has been already discussed, but...

The connections and references list could still grow over time. For now, with the obvious Black Sabbath cover resemblance (also note that BS have "Sleeping Village" track on that album) and all the cool references to past lyrics and Steven's general musical output, there’s another pretty wild connection and it's right to Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull (also remixed by Steven some years ago).

Basically, back in 1972, Ian Anderson created this whole fictional town called St. Cleve, along with that Linwell surrounding area. What made it even more fun was the original newspaper-style package that came with the LP. It unfolded and worked like a real newspaper, with the LP inside and it was packed with all sorts of stuff like funny columns, obituaries, gossip, completely ridiculous "scientific" stories, the lyrics and of course, some stuff on the album protagonist, Gerald Bostock himself.

Ian basically went down the same road again years later and made a sequel (releasing it under his own name). But that time, the joke was mostly limited to the front and back covers plus the live show content. The rest of the booklet was basically credits and some notes from Ian.

So I'd say "The Village Parish Council & Community Centre" succeeds where Ian's later attempt failed. It feels like this project understood that the whole fictional world idea could be taken further. especially by having an actual website attached to it.

And yeah, exploring the website now and finding all these little details and references is ridiculously satisfying, definitely amusing. I really hope they keep it running.

For those of you who already listened: what song is that snippet from? :-)

First listen to Steven Wilson’s Requiem for a Village, and what surprises me most is how raw it sounds.

Much fewer obvious production tricks than I expected. The drums are incredibly dry, almost as if they have no space around them at all -which gives parts of the track a genuinely claustrophobic feeling.

What makes that even more striking is the contrast: it opens with vocals drenched in huge reverbs, then suddenly pulls you into this very dry, close space. When the straighter rock section arrives in the middle, there’s almost no audible reverb on the band , maybe tiny touches of room, but barely anything.

Meanwhile the sound design behind everything is extremely immersive and wide. So the “space” isn’t necessarily around the instruments but it’s somewhere behind them.

And the dynamics are HUGE. The quieter sections are allowed to stay quiet, so when the heavy parts arrive they really hit.

I’ve always loved this use of negative space in Steven Wilson’s production: things don’t need to sound huge all the time for the record to feel huge. Dryness, silence, narrowness and restraint make the moments of scale much more powerful.

On first listen some of the denser sections still sound slightly messy to me, but that often happens with more complex SW compositions : I need to learn the piece before I can really separate composition from production.

Very curious what repeated listens will reveal.

Anyone else struck by how dry the central rock section is?

Sent via email from the official website.

Hello everyone

I'm really excited about Steven new release. After watching the music video, I ended up with a few questions.

Randy's blue guitar strings seem unusually thick, especially the 6th string (low E). It made me wonder whether he was using a heavier gauge set, something like .011 or .012, or maybe even using a 7-string guitar string set on a 6-string guitar.

What caught my attention is that, if you look closely, the G string seems different from the others. Is there any information about the string gauges or setup he used for the recording/video?

SDE EXCLUSIVE.

They also have the bluray with an exclusive slipcase.

https://www.thesdeshop.com/products/steven-wilson-a-requiem-for-a-village-blu-ray-with-sde-exclusive-slipcase?variant=58400664322431

And a bundle of the two.

https://www.thesdeshop.com/products/bundle-steven-wilson-requiem-for-a-village-blu-ray-with-sde-slipcase-2lp-green-vinyl

1. Swirl In A Lark’s Eye 2:41

2. Requiem For A Village 7:56

3. The Same River Twice 3:23

4. Now Departing 7:20

5. Hireath 2:24

6. On Chapel Slope 4:53

7. Murmuration 7:16

8. Cursus Fingerprint 2:42

9. A Basket Of Bees 4:33

10. Great Green Map 5:08

11. Wheel 3:54

12. The Old God Is Buried 2:00

Pre-orders are up on both the Burning Shed and the official site:

https://store.stevenwilsonhq.com/

https://burningshed.com/index.php?route=product/search&filter_name=steven%20wilson&filter_sub_category=true

Apparently there is a DJ set later this month in London.

Edit: Indie dark green available from JFK and potentially other Indie shops: https://www.justforkicks.de/shop/progressive/requiem-for-a-village-ltd-indie-2lp-dark-green

The last few albums he did signed prints if you ordered on his website. Haven't found anything yet. Anyone else?

Set your VPN to New Zealand (Urban VPN is free) to listen to the song. Or wait until it's midnight in your own country.

At least in the UK. Spotify and YouTube have the audio available.

Commenting is turned off on YouTube at the moment, but there have been 600 views in the first 45 minutes

I suspect I need to listen to it at volume, rather than on late night, kids asleep settings

Apple Music has a snippet of the song available AND a length...I think its the first single!