Butterfly Mind Album Notes
SpeakOverview Butterfly Mind marks 40 years since I started performing in bands. The album was written and recorded between October 2020 and September 2021 and mixed and mastered by Steven Wilson in October and November of 2021. The title is ...
Flowers At The Scene Album Notes
Speak"I decided to resurrect an idea we had in the 1990s of the no-man production team (we’d always liked the concept of albums being produced by no-man and carrying something of the band’s DNA into other artist’s releases). Very belatedly,...
Plenty – It Could Be Home
SpeakAnywhere But Widnes – Plenty (An Origin Story) Plenty existed from July 1986 to November 1988 and had a partial resurrection in June 1990. The band fluctuated between being a quartet and a trio, but the longest lasting line-up comprised ...
Lost In The Ghost Light
SpeakPsychoderelict: If it looks like a Rock Opera, smells like a Rock Opera, then…… I was tempted, in true 1970s style, to offer an enigmatic explanation that offered more questions than answers, but as Lost In The Ghost Light has nothin...
Stupid Things That Mean The World
SpeakStupid Beginnings Stupid Things That Mean The World was finished in late April 2015. In terms of release dates, it seemed to emerge quickly after Abandoned Dancehall Dreams, but the truth felt somewhat different. All the recording for Ab...
Schoolyard Ghosts
SpeakThese are Tim’s sleeve notes from the August 2014 double cd reissue of Schoolyard Ghosts. Playground Fears: Schoolyard Ghosts came together between Spring 2006 and Spring 2008 and unlike other no-man albums, its starting points almost ...
Abandoned Dancehall Dreams
SpeakAbandoned Dancehall Dreams was finished in mid-April 2014. My only previous solo album (2004’s My Hotel Year) was created as a means of tying together several incomplete (and very different) projects I had on the go at the time. A solo a...
California, Norfolk
SpeakTim Bowness’s album notes also appear on the reissue of California, Norfolk. Michael Bearpark’s notes are exclusive to this site. Peter Chilvers’ reflections on making California, Norfolk are available exclusively in the booklet of the 2...
Returning Jesus
SpeakReturning Jesus (2001) Prologue: On and (mostly) off, no-man’s 2001 release Returning Jesus came together over a period of thirteen years. Galvanised by writing the Carolina Skeletons EP in 1998 and recording Speak in 1999, the last th...
Henry Fool – Men Singing
SpeakPrologue: Late November 2012 and the Sheffield to Norwich hotline was very hot indeed: “Jarrod, I really like mix 324 of EIS, but maybe the synth could be a little lower at 2.16 and the guitar slightly louder at the 6.33 tempo shift. Als...
Love And Endings
SpeakThe following are variations on the text from the Love And Endings ‘lyrics/song notes’ booklet: The 2011 no-man band chemistry was as strong as any I’d experienced in 29 years of performing. In a live context, certain songs felt immens...
Warm Winter
SpeakThis time, in two tenses, a current account of the making of an album, rather than a retrospective one. ——— “Stories Come out of other stories Lead to other stories New memories of machines” Composed, recorded, mixed and mastered between...
Together We’re Stranger
SpeakBoosted by the positive response to Returning Jesus and excited at the new directions some of the album’s songs suggested, in early 2002, No- Man started work on what turned out to be the most deeply personal and most quickly realised al...
Wild Opera
SpeakAlmost as soon as the closing notes of Things Change had faded, Steven and I were back in the studio eager to write an even more epic set of songs than those heard on Flowermouth. The two main pieces that emerged were Love You To Bits (t...
My Hotel Year
SpeakAlong with Wild Opera, My Hotel Year is the least loved album I’ve ever made and, in some ways, it’s the album of mine I love least as well. After the airy and atmospheric Together We’re Stranger and in the lull that follows the release ...
Flowermouth
SpeakRecorded in the Summer of 1993 and released a year later, Flowermouth was the album that almost brought No-Man’s career to its knees, while simultaneously giving us the courage to carry on. Although we’d liked many of the songs, we f...
