Ulver returned earlier this year with their new album Wars of the Roses. Early pioneers of Norwegian black metal, the band have continually evolved throughout their career and now stand as living legends of the dark music industry, blending rock, electronica, symphonic and chamber traditions along with noise and experimental music to create ground- breaking material.

Until recently however the band had remained exclusively within the studio. This changed in May 2009 when the band accepted an invitation to appear at the Norwegian Festival of Literature. The success of this gig lead to them embarking on a string of other gigs in 2009 and 2010, selling out prestigious venues such as the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Volksbühne in Berlin and La Cigale in Paris before they returned to their homeland for this landmark gig at The Norwegian Opera House.

The 2 hour concert married tracks from throughout the band’s catalogue to stunning visuals to create a spectacle fitting for such a grand venue. This landmark show was recorded and will now be released as a limited edition 32 page rigid digibook 2 disc set (Blu-ray and DVD).

The set can be pre-ordered now from the Ulver mini-site. The site also features a trailer for the DVD, downloads and more.

Ulver are on tour during November, check them out at the following dates;
10th -Espace Torino Italy
11th – Circolo Degli Artisti Roma Italy
12th – Teatro Regio Parma Italy
17th – Razzmatazz 2 Barcelona Spain
18th – Caracol Madrid Spain
19th – Musicbox Lisboa Portugal
21st – Cidade Da Cultura Santiago de Compostela Spain
26th – Fuzz Club Athenai Greece
17th December 2011 – Mega Club Katowice Poland
14th January 2012 – Movistar Arena

Ulver mini-site.

Anesthetize by Porcupine Tree has been named DVD of the year in the Critics Choice poll in the end of year issue of Classic Rock Presents Prog.

It was one of three Kscope releases in the top five ahead of Insurgentes by Steven Wilson at number 3 and Mixtaped by No-Man at number 5.

Click here to buy the Blu-Ray/DVD

There were also three Kscope releases in the top five of the Prog Albums of the Year poll with Grappling Hooks by North Atlantic Oscillation (#5), Someone Here is Missing by The Pineapple Thief (#3) finishing behind Anathema’s We’re Here Because We’re Here, which has done the double after also being declared Classic Rock magazine’s favourite Prog album.

New documentary starring Porcupine Tree front-man Steven Wilson
Special screenings with Q&A in London (2nd Sept) and New York (21st Sept). Available as 2 DVD set from 27th September – pre-order now.

Insurgentes, Lasse Hoile’s film about Steven Wilson, is released on DVD by Kscope on 27th September and is now available to pre-order from the Kscope store. The first 2000 come with an exclusive free gift if you order it online via Kscope/Burning Shed.
Click here to pre-order the DVD set

Prior to the DVD release there will be a special screenings of the film in the Prince Charles Cinema at London’s Leicester Square on September 2nd and at the IFC Center in New York on September 21st. Steven will be at both screenings and will be available to answer questions from the audience about the film during a Q&A session which will follow the film. He will be joined by Lasse at the New York screening.

A limited number of tickets for these special evenings are available to purchase from www.princecharlescinema.com (London) and Burning Shed (New York). Tickets for London cost £10 (+75p booking fee) and tickets for New York cost $15.

The 2 disc set comes packaged in a digibook with a 65 page booklet featuring photography by Lasse and Carl Glover, Steven’s long-time art collaborator, in a hard slip case. The second disc features a host of extras including a 31 minute film of Bass Communion and Pig live in Mexico City, the promo video for Harmony Korine, two trailers, 6 audio out-takes from the album recording sessions and more. The film is subtitled in Spanish, French, German, and English and the sound mixed is in stereo and 5.1 surround sound. 

Insurgentes is a musical road movie that follows the making of the solo record of the same name, and is a portrait of an increasingly rare artist who works with music and media out of love and not for fame and fortune, persisting in making art on his own terms in a world where ‘throw-away’ mentality is increasingly becoming the norm.

Hoile has described the project as ‘starting out as a small side project to Steven Wilson’s solo album’ yet ‘as the project developed and more and more people got involved, we realised that we had the potential to create a great documentary that could stand on its own feet.’

Insurgentes explores music and the album as art form, and applying the same aesthetic vision through the writing, performance, production, artwork, lyrics, videos and beyond. The film looks into the issues of creating, packaging and marketing music in an era when iPods, mp3′s and download culture are changing and eroding perceptions of exactly what an album is supposed to sound and look like.

“My fear is that the current generation of kids who’re being born into this information revolution, growing up with the Internet, cell phones, iPods, this download culture, ‘American Idol,’ reality TV, prescription drugs, PlayStations — all of these things kind of distract people from what’s important about life, which is to develop a sense of curiosity about what’s out there.”
(Steven Wilson, MTV News)

It’s this curiosity that takes the artist around the world to find inspiration to create and record his music.

Through travels to different cultures and continents we meet with other personalities in the industry, including Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth, the Israeli superstar Aviv Geffen and the legendary producer Trevor Horn, and hear different opinions on the current and future state of music. The result, as Lasse remarks, is ‘both a portrait of Steven as an artist but also a look at today’s download culture and the effects it has on the artists trying to create and share what is truly in their hearts and minds.’

Insurgentes also follows Steven back to his roots and upbringing and what led to him becoming a musician, from humble beginnings in the suburbs of London to touring the world as a successful artist, working with many other established artists, and creating a lasting legacy of recorded work.

www.insurgentesfilm.com

Anesthetize is a 2 disc set (DVD + Blu-Ray) which captures the power of band’s live show. Recorded in high definition on multi-cameras over two nights at 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland in October 2008, the concerts featured tracks from throughout the band’s career until that point. Anesthetize collects the highlights from the two shows and presents them on both DVD and on Blu-Ray. The last remaining copies of the limited digi-book edition of the DVD and Blu-Ray set are now available to order from the Kscope store. Once this edition sells out, a super jewel case edition of the set will be available.

Buy Porcupine Tree albums
www.kscopemusic.com/porcupinetree

Buy Steven Wilson albums
www.kscopemusic.com/stevenwilson

Click here to order your copy of Mixtaped DVD from the Kscope store

Mixtaped, the 2 disc DVD set from No-Man, is now available from the Kscope store. Comprising the band’s sell-out performance at London’s Bush Hall in 2008, a comprehensive career-spanning documentary, and numerous extras (including newly commissioned and archive video footage), Mixtaped provides a fascinating insight into one of British music’s most unusual cult heroes.

Formed in 1987 by Tim Bowness and Steven Wilson, No-Man has produced a unique body of work that has developed from the band’s proto Trip-Hop / Ambient origins into something beyond easy categorisation.

The documentary, Returning, reveals for the first time the band’s full history from their roots in a teenager’s bedroom to an unsuccessful career in mainstream Pop; from near obscurity to increasing cult success.

Here is a trailer for the 2DVD set:

Mixtaped Disc One:
* No-Man’s complete Bush Hall live performance with 5.1 and stereo options (90 mins).
* Live photo gallery – Including photos from all three of No-Man’s first live concerts in 15 years, with an exclusive soundtrack of the song Housekeeping (recorded live in Dusseldorf).

Mixtaped Disc Two:
* Returning – A 90 minute career-spanning documentary including previously unseen footage, photos and images, and in-depth interviews with every member of No-Man past and present (including Tim Bowness, Steven Wilson, Ben Coleman and Chris Maitland). Directed by award winning journalist Richard Smith, Returning is the story of No-Man.
* Extras – Complete videos for several No-Man songs spanning 1990-2008.
* Rare live footage.
* No-Man ‘live timeline’.