STEVEN WILSON LOVES CHANGING THE MINDS OF SPATIAL AUDIO SKEPTICS. HE’S THE GO-TO DOLBY ATMOS AND 5.1 MIXMASTER FOR MANY HERITAGE ARTISTS, NEW-WAVE BANDS, AND ALTERNATIVE ACTS. BEST KNOWN FOR LEADING THE POST-PROG COLLECTIVE PORCUPINE TREE, RELEASING A SCORE OF GENRE-STRETCHING SOLO ALBUMS, AND SERVING AS A KEY CREATIVE CONTRIBUTOR TO SUCH EXPERIMENTAL GROUPS AS NO-MAN AND BLACKFIELD, WILSON’S APPROACH IS SIMPLE: BRING THEM INTO HIS STUDIO AND LET THE MUSIC DO THE TALKING.
“My biggest thrill is sitting the artist down in the magic chair that’s in the sweet spot, and then I play them their own music that’s now suddenly opened out into spatial, three-dimensional audio—and I just watch their jaws hit the floor. It’s the best! It’s the best feeling in the world,” Wilson acknowledges. “And I’ve had it happen many times. I’ve had it with Andy Partridge, Robert, Martin, Roland, and more recently Mat, from Suede.” That’s King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, ABC’s Martin Fry, Tears for Fears’s Roland Orzabal, and Suede’s Mat Osman. Partridge, of course, is from XTC.
Besides handling a litany of other artists’ immersive-audio catalog upgrades, Wilson also concocts far-reaching Atmos mixes for his own original material. He recently completed one for his seventh studio solo album, The Harmony Codex (Virgin Music Group), released in September 2023. The Atmos mixing was done on the 7.1.4 system in Wilson’s home studio, located just outside London. There, he uses a Logic Pro DAW with Logic native and Universal Audio plug-ins, Dolby Atmos Music Panner bridging, the Dolby Atmos Renderer, and two Universal Audio Apollo interfaces, monitoring his mixes-inprogress on Genelec 8020 speakers.
Some of The Harmony Codex’s most striking Atmos moments occur in Wilson’s duet with Israeli vocalist Ninet Tayeb on the despair-driven song “Rock Bottom.” It’s a downward-spiraling sequel of sorts to “Pariah,” the pair’s stirring, uplifting collaboration on Wilson’s 2017 solo album, To the Bone. Steven is happy to accept comparisons to Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s impassioned “Don’t Give Up,” from Gabriel’s multiplatinum 1986 LP, So—but only up to a point.
“Listen, I epic—an orchestral, dramatic big ballad with Shirley Bassey singing it. That was how I imagined the song from the very first moment Ninet played me the rough guitar demo.” Paging Michael G. Wilson (no relation) and Barbara Broccoli—Steven Wilson would to score a James Bond film someday. “It’s No. 1 on my bucket list,” he admits. “But I’m still waiting. … Still waiting.” The following interview has been edited for clarity.
