Grace for Drowning

''Grace for Drowning'' is the second solo studio album by Steven Wilson, producer, songwriter, and frontman of Porcupine Tree. It was released by Kscope on 26 September 2011 as a double album. The album received a nomination at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Surround Sound Album.Nominees And Winners , grammy.com

Background

After the release of his first solo album, '' Insurgentes'', Steven Wilson spent time on a number of his other projects. These include Porcupine Tree's album '' The Incident'' in 2009, Blackfield's third album '' Welcome to My DNA'', on 28 March 2011, and an ongoing project with Mikael Åkerfeldt (the leader of the band Opeth) named Storm Corrosion. However, amongst these projects, in 2010, he announced that he had started working on his second solo album as well.

In early June 2011, Wilson launched a minisite for the new album revealing the album's name and album art photographed by his longtime collaborator Lasse Hoile. Additionally, a free download of the track "Remainder the Black Dog" was also added. ''Sound and Vision'' magazine's website premiered the video of "Track One" on 10 August 2011. Not long after, Yahoo! Music debuted the music video for "Index". On 16 August, ''WNYC's'' website premiered a free download for the radio edit of "Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye". A video clip for "Remainder the Black Dog" was finally released on 31 August, through ''Guitar World'' magazine's website.

Upon completion of the album, Wilson said:

The special edition of the album is going to release on Blu-ray video disc with the music playing in 5.1 surround sound and accompanying visuals and videos for each track,.

The track ''Raider II'' is based on the murders of the "BTK killer", Dennis Rader.

Critical reception

Reception for the album was generally favourable. Ben Bland of ''Stereoboard'' wrote positively of the album, stating "For a work so defiantly widescreen in its intentions as this, it is truly remarkable that there is nothing that could, or rather should, be accused of being filler or being over the top." William Ruhlmann from AllMusic gave a mixed review to the album and compared it to Wilson's other projects, Porcupine Tree and Bass Communion and commented: "Grace for Drowning has a particular conception in terms of its emotional journey from sadness through anger to acceptance, but it is also just another in a lengthy discography of albums by Wilson under various names in relatively similar styles".Grace for Drowning – Steven Wilson , AllMusic
/ref> Brice Ezell of ''PopMatters'' gave a very positive review to the album, scoring it 8 out of 10. He wrote that " ilsonmay remain a divisive musical personality, but Grace for Drowning is such a fine listen that even the most adamantly opposed listener has to at least give him style points, both for the artistic presentation of the album and the music within".

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the official website

;Managerial
*Andy Leff – Acme Music
*Alex Leeks – assistant

;Technical and production
*Steven Wilson – production, mixing
*Pat Mastelotto – additional production, electronic drums on "No Part of Me" and "Index"
* Dave Stewart – string & choir arrangements
*Mat Collis – engineering
*Paschal Byrne – mastering

;Visuals and imagery
*Lasse Hoile – photography, film director
*Bettina Ejlersen – photography assistant
*Carl Glover – art director
*Ray Shulman – Blu-ray authoring

;Sounding
*Steven Wilson – vocals on all tracks except "Sectarian", "Raider Prelude" and "Belle de Jour"
*Dave Kerzner – sound design on "Raider II"
*Synergy Vocals – choir on "Postcard", "Raider Prelude" and "Raider II"

;Musicians

*Steven Wilson – keys (CD1 tracks 1–5 and 7 / CD2 1–5), guitars (CD1 tracks 2, 3, and 5 / CD2 tracks 1–5), autoharp (CD1 track 2 / CD2 tracks 1, 2, 5), bass guitar (CD1 tracks 2 and 5 / CD2 tracks 1 and 4), percussion (CD1 track 4 / CD2 track 4), piano (CD1 tracks 5–7 / CD2 tracks 4 and 5), gong (CD1 track 6), glockenspiel (CD1 track 7), programming (CD2 track 2), harmonium (CD2 tracks 4 and 5)
*Jordan Rudess – piano (CD1 tracks 1 and 3 / CD2 track 4)
*Theo Travis – saxophone (CD1 tracks 2, 4 and 7 / CD2 track 4), clarinet (CD1 track 3 and 7 / CD2 track 4), flute (CD1 track 7 / CD2 track 4)
*Ben Castle – clarinet (CD1 track 2)
*Nick Beggs – Chapman stick (CD1 tracks 2 and 7 / CD2 track 4), bass guitar (tracks CD1 tracks 4 and 7 / CD2 track 4)
*Tony Levin – bass guitar (CD1 track 3 / CD2 track 5)

*Nic France – drums (CD1 track 2–3, 5 and 7 / CD2 track 3–5)
*Pat Mastelotto – acoustic and electronic drums (CD1 track 4 / CD2 track 2)
*Markus Reuter – U8 touch guitar (CD1 track 4)
*Trey Gunn – warr guitar and bass guitar (CD1 track 4)
*London Session Orchestra – strings (CD1 tracks 4 and 5 / CD2 tracks 1 and 2)
*Steve Hackett – guitar (CD1 track 7)
*Mike Outram – guitar (CD2 track 4)
*Sand Snowman – guitar (CD2 track 4)

*Deluxe Edition also contains:
**120 page hardback book.
**Blu-ray with 5.1 surround sound mix, high resolution stereo and additional demos.
**Blu-ray also contains films for five tracks (directed by Lasse Hoile), photo galleries, handwritten notes and lyrics.

DVD

Wilson and longtime collaborator Lasse Hoile announced in late August 2012 that a DVD, filmed live in Mexico City on the Grace for Drowning tour, would be released on 24 September 2012.

Tour

Touring band members included drummer Marco Minnemann, bassist and backing vocalist Nick Beggs, guitarist Aziz Ibrahim (First European leg only), John Wesley (First US leg only), or Niko Tsonev (Second leg), keyboardist Adam Holzman, and Theo Travis on flute, saxes and clarinet. Drummer/keyboardist Gary Husband was originally announced on keys, but pulled out for medical reasons. Ibrahim was unable to tour in the US due to visa problems.John Wesley's personal websit

21 November 2011

First leg

Second leg

Charts

Awards

Grammy Awards

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, style="text-align:center;", 54th Grammy Awards, 2012 , , style="text-align:left;", ''Grace For Drowning'' , , Best Surround Sound Album , ,
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Progressive Music Awards

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, style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2", 2012 , , style="text-align:left;", "Raider II" , , Anthem , ,
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, ''Grace for Drowning'' (Deluxe Edition) , , Grand Design , ,

References

{{Authority control

2011 albums
Steven Wilson albums
Kscope albums