Prog If is the busiest man in prog, then his longtime No-Man partner Tim Bowness might well be the second. As well as playing in a ridiculous number of bands including Plenty and Henry Fool, he’s also a serial collaborator – Peter Chilvers, Richard Barbieri, Judy Dyble – and a solo artist to boot. When meets him in a Central London pub, he and Wilson have just recorded an episode of their podcast ; another facet to an impressive partnership that stretches back to the late 1980s.
The pub, as it happens, is full of Warrington Wolves fans on their way to lose the Challenge Cup to Wigan Warriors. As someone from the former town, it triggers memories of his childhood years learning ukulele (because it’s what local legend George Formby did) and driving to Cornwall with his parents each summer in a boiling-hot, airtight hatchback filled with plumes of toxic cigarette smoke. He’s a natural raconteur, and this gift for verbalising the visual is one of the things that makes his songs so distinctive.
Or as he puts it: “Like Steven Wilson, I find it difficult to shut up.” We here to talk about Bowness’ eighth solo album , his first for Kscope and the first where he sings, plays and produces everything himself (Wilson mixed it, naturally). So why the change of label from classic prog stable InsideOutMusic back to Kscope, which released several No-Man albums during the 00s? “I’ve worked with quite a number of the artists on Kscope, and I think they do have this quite da.