As two of the leading figures in contemporary progressive music, Steven Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt have treated their fans to all sorts of thrillingly unconventional and atmospheric sounds over the years. But even by their own talismanic standards, the duo’s 2012 collaboration as Storm Corrosion exists in its own psychedelic lane of peculiarity, throwing listeners into a world of haunting and unsettling ambience like no other.
Some 12 years on from its original release, the album will be reissued on 27th September via Kscope on LP, CD and Blu Ray forms with a new Dolby Atmos remix by Steven Wilson. It will also include a bonus cut of ‘Drag Ropes’ – The only song they’ve performed live to date – recorded when Åkerfeldt guested with Wilson and his band at London’s Royal Albert Hall in September 2015, plus extra documentary insights and footage. Given how the album clearly holds a special place in the hearts of both of its creators, and naturally their collective army of fans around the world, the new release will also be a timely celebration.
A love letter to the esoteric and abstruse sounds of the past, crossing the mystifying noises of late 60s/early 70s German groups like Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh with the sound of British folk heroes like Nick Drake and Bert Jansch, while also embracing the eclectic oddities of cult figures like Scott Walker, it’s the kind of album that takes you on a transcendental journey that you never really come back from. For the two friends, this kind of fierce originality is precisely what they set out to achieve.
“Storm Corrosion was the 2012 album made by myself and Mikael Åkerfeldt of the band Opeth, and one which both of us considered a deeply satisfying artistic success,” said Wilson. “It remains one of my favourite releases in my whole catalogue. Part of what made it so much fun was that pretty much anything that either of us suggested, the other would agree it should definitely be pursued, no matter how crazy and off the wall it sounded.”
That sense of pride is shared by his accomplice Åkerfeldt, who feels it’s easily one of the most experimental, if not bizarre, things either of them have ever recorded, and all the better for it. For him, and countless others, these enigmatic recordings seem to exist in a genre of their own – at times sounding more acoustic and minimalistic, and others infinitely more cerebral and foreboding, but in any case, always intoxicating.
“Throughout all of my years as a musician, it’s very rare for me to return to a record I have participated in myself for the sheer listening pleasure alone,” he continued. “Storm Corrosion is the exception. It’s such a lovely record to me. I can distance myself from my own work on it and just experience it as a fan of its music. Everything about this record is strange in the best way possible.”
“We’d talked many times over the years about doing a project with just the two of us,” continued Wilson. “In 2011 we quietly got together for a week at my studio, and started to make music, not knowing where it would take us, but knowing that the last thing we wanted to do was the obvious. Instead, we found ourselves making an album of weird psychedelic chamber folk music, almost child-like in places, with lots of dissonance, orchestral arrangements and weird bits.”
The album’s impact was keenly felt the world over – So much so, that there have been on-going calls for a follow-up. It’s something both musicians are open to but given how busy they are in their main projects, whether it happens anytime soon remains to be seen. And if the members of Storm Corrosion do end up working on new material, chances are it will be done behind closed doors, in a similar spirit to their brilliantly leftfield debut.
“I get the notion that some listeners are completely and utterly in love with it,” said Åkerfeldt. “I really understand that, since that’s how I feel myself. It’s strange and crazy in many ways. This record has got something. It’s quite unique. I’m so happy to see it available again.”
For Wilson, who first started working with Opeth as the producer for seminal albums like Blackwater Park, Deliverance and Damnation, the sheer delight he takes from working with someone as utterly devoted to the surreal and obscure is something he has been continually vocal about. They are kindred spirits, and in more ways than one – this particular masterpiece demonstrating that in the most poignant of ways.
“That security in our collaboration could only have come from a place of mutual respect and admiration, even a sense of awe at what the other was capable of,” said Wilson. “We loved the finished result. It had seemed so effortless to make it.”
Once it was unveiled to the world, Storm Corrosion created just as much excitement as it did confusion. And as anyone familiar with either of these musicians will know, that’s precisely what they were aiming for.
“I don’t know what the people expecting a full-on heavy rock album made of it,” laughed Wilson. “In many ways it has become the cult classic we always intended it to be.”
You can watch a trailer for the album here at RAMzine and order it here.
