Steven Wilson Announces Unique Charity Box Set Edition Of ‘The Future Bites’
Titled ‘The Ultra Deluxe Music Product On Obsolete Media’, the strictly one-off box will retail for £10,000 with the profits going to the UK’s Music Venue Trust.
Steven Wilson has announced details of a completely unique special, charity box set edition of his forthcoming sixth album, The Future Bites, which is released on January 29 through Caroline International.
Titled The Ultra Deluxe Music Product On Obsolete Media, the set will retail for £10,000. All proceeds will go directly to the UK’s Music Venue Trust to help save grassroots gig venues in the UK.
“The first Porcupine Tree show was in The Nag’s Head in High Wycombe and, for the first ten years the band played live shows, we gigged solely in that subterranean world of clubs and pub venues, Wilson explains.
“As someone who doesn’t really exist within the mainstream, this is the stuff that really affects me. I wouldn’t be sat here with any sort of career in the music industry if it weren’t for those venues and – just as importantly – the people who make them work night after night. The loss of venues in this country feels like a big part of my history dying. If you try to imagine the world without live music, you know immediately it would be a terrible place. Music is a connector, it’s an inspiration and it’s a healer for so many people. It’s essential we work now to save these places for future generations of bands and fans.”
Never done before and never to be repeated, The Ultra Deluxe Music Product On Obsolete Media charity box set provides an insight into Wilson’s working process. The ultimate aspirational product, it proves that if music is an ongoing conversation between artist and fan, this one off edition of The Future Bites is less mass email and more like the closest thing you’ll get to an in-depth discussion with the artist over an intimate dinner date for two.
“This edition of The Future Bites takes the whole notion of deluxe limited editions to its logical and fairly extreme conclusion, as the ultimate limited edition will obviously end up being just one copy,” Wilson adds.
“In many ways, this edition is more analogous with the world of art than with those of music or luxury branding. Only one person can own an actual painting with the artist’s brush strokes on it. There is no variance, only the one original. With regards the contents of the one of one edition, it’s the purchaser’s choice as whether they decide to share what they’ve bought or keep it to themselves. Do they want to exhibit ‘the painting’, or put it on display at home? If it was me, I’d probably keep it private but I’ll leave it entirely up to them as what they do with the contents of their purchase.”
The Ultra Deluxe Music Product On Obsolete Media charity box set edition features the already announced deluxe box set of the album alongside music unheard anywhere else, conceptual artwork, hand-written lyrics and items of personal ephemera from Steven Wilson’s archive. It includes:
* One sided 7 inch single with unique track “The Taskmaster” – an edition of one, never to be released anywhere else
*Unique laptop bag used in “Eminent Sleaze” video
* The Future Bites test pressing
*”Eminent Sleaze” test pressing (with B-sides “Eyewitness”/”In Floral Green”)
*”12 Things I Forgot” test pressing (with B-sides) “Move Like Fever”/”King Ghost” (Tangerine Dream Remix)
*CDR of unreleased 2016 soundcheck performance of a cover version never otherwise performed live
*Steven Wilson’s Grammy nomination certificate and medal from 2011 for Grace For Drowning – best surround sound mix
*Printed materials used in the “Eminent Sleaze” video
*6 x laminated AAA passes for various tours between 2011 and 2018
*Polaroids from The Future Bites cover shoot photo session
*Original drawing by Hajo Mueller of Steven Wilson
*Handwritten lyrics with corrections for various songs between 1996-2020: “Count Of Unease”, “Follower”, “Eminent Sleaze”, “Salvaging”, “Veneno Para Las Hadas”, “Personal Shopper”, “The Raven That Refused To Sing”, “Dark Matter.”
The Ultra Deluxe Music Product On Obsolete Media one-off charity box set will go on sale via Steven Wilson’s official website at 9am on Black Friday (November 27).
