Blackfield

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Biography

Blackfield is a collaboratory music project by Porcupine Tree founder and lead singer Steven Wilson and Israel i Rock music|rock singer Aviv Geffen . They have released three albums under the moniker; Blackfield (album)|Blackfield and Blackfield II as equal partners, and Welcome to my DNA with Geffen taking a more dominant role. A fourth studio album, yet to be titled, is currently being worked on, with Wilson taking an even more passive role.

History

Collaborative era

Blackfield I (2000-2005)

Geffen, a fan of Porcupine Tree and Wilson, invited the band to play shows in Israel in 2000. He struck up a friendship with Wilson, leading to the two musicians recording together. Geffen performed backing vocals on two tracks on Porcupine Tree's In Absentia album, "The Sound of Muzak" and "Prodigal". Geffen, interested in growing a fanbase outside of Israel, approached Wilson about starting their own project, which would become Blackfield. Originally planned as an EP for a 2001 release, it eventually evolved into a 2004 self-titled Blackfield (album)|full-length recording . http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Blackfield/Biography/ Wilson provided lead vocals on all but two songs, and played guitar or piano on every song except "Scars", which had instrumentation provided by Geffen's band "The Mistakes. http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/blackfield-st2005"

Outside of Israel, the band has received constant comparison to Porcupine Tree, Wilson's most popular project. In response, Wilson has explained:

...Porcupine Tree would never be so focused on the art of a 3 minute pop song, which I believe. Blackfield is all about the art of a great tradition pop song of verse-chorus-verse-chorus. Porcupine Tree has never been about that, although we have fraternized a little bit with the art of pop music. Porcupine Tree has always been more about horizontally complex long pieces and the album is an overall piece rather than lots of little pieces... Aviv is not a big fan of heavy music and he is not a big fan of long pieces so immediately the meeting point had to be somewhere where we were both focused on short melancholic songs. http://designermagazine.tripod.com/PorcupineTreeINT3.html

In early 2004 the band debuted live on a couple of promotional TV performances in Israel. This line-up featured drummer Chris Maitland (drummer of Porcupine Tree from 1993 to 2002), who was replaced by Tomer Z idkyahu, for a European tour that followed in the Autumn of 2004.

Their first self-titled album was released in Israel and Europe in 2004, and the United States in 2005.

Blackfield II (2006-2008)

While the band's first album was created over a relatively long period of time, the follow-up album, Blackfield II , was created in one short burst of activity. http://www.poprockbands.com/blackfield/biography/prb.html Wilson and Geffen worked on their respective projects throughout the end of 2005, but in early 2006 Wilson moved to Israel for six months to work on the album. http://www.poprockbands.com/blackfield/biography/prb.html Wilson performed lead or co-vocals on all tracks except "Miss U", which Geffen performed all vocals on. http://www.dprp.net/reviews/200710.php The album was released in February 2007 in Europe and March 2007 in the United States. In the same year, keyboardist Daniel Salomon left the band to continue his successful solo career. Salomon was replaced by Eran Mitelman, former keyboardist for popular Israel i hard rock band HaYehudim .

The band also recorded a live CD/DVD combo, titled Blackfield - Live in New York City while touring in in support of Blackfield II , in March 2007. http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/118744-blackfield-nyc-blackfield-live-in-new-york-city

In a 2008 interview, Wilson discussed Blackfield's future at the time, stating "I think we’re going to tentatively start working on some new songs and that’s as far as we’ve got regarding planning. I think there almost certainly will be another record. As with No-Man and my other projects, there’s no reason to stop doing them as long as the music keeps flowing." http://www.innerviews.org/inner/noman2.html

Geffen-led era

Welcome to my DNA (2009-2011)

In January 2009, to promote his first English-language European release, Geffen went on a small tour of Europe with the Blackfield live band, including Wilson being billed as a special guest. Half of the set consisted of songs from the then yet to be released Aviv Geffen (album)|first English language solo album by Geffen while the rest was a selection of Blackfield songs. Wilson would also appear on three tracks from the album.

In April 2010, Geffen and Wilson got into studio to begin writing the follow-up to Blackfield II . However, this time, all songs, with the exception of the track "Waving", were written by Geffen, as Wilson had been concentrating on his second solo album, Grace for Drowning , at the same time. http://www.innerviews.org/inner/wilson.html Wilson only performed lead vocals on five of the eleven tracks, but provide backing or co-vocals on several other tracks. Their third album, Welcome to my DNA , was released on the 28th of March 2011 http://www.burningshed.com/store/stevenwilson/collection/11/ and supported by a European and North American tour following a kickoff concert in Israel. http://twitter.com/#!/blackfieldband However, several concert dates were cancelled due to the death of Wilson's father in May 2011. http://www.smnnews.com/2011/05/24/porcupine-tree-frontman-steven-wilson-cancels-several-blackfield-shows-due-to-family-death/ http://www.blackfield.org/live

Fourth studio album (2012-present)

After touring for Welcome to my DNA was completed, Wilson confirmed that with Blackfield, like the majority of his other projects, he himself had no particular plans for the future, but the project wasn't necessarily over either. http://www.stereoboard.com/content/view/169396/9 However, in January 2012, Geffen has announced his intentions to release a fourth Blackfield album in May 2012. http://starsdie.com/wp/fourth-blackfield-album-coming-this-year/https://twitter.com/#!/avivgeffen/status/153993171641171968 This prompted Wilson to announce that his role would continue to lessen, with Wilson acting only as a contributor and mixer. Wilson said of the band's future:

...just to clarify news elsewhere of a new Blackfield album coming this year – please note that this time my involvement will be as a contributor rather than a member. I will still be mixing the album, and maybe sing on a couple of Aviv’s songs (there will be other guest singers I understand), but with my complete blessing Blackfield is now under his sole curatorship, a process which really began with Welcome to My DNA " http://starsdie.com/wp/fourth-blackfield-album-coming-this-year/ http://www.dprp.net/wp/? p=4477

Wilson later admitted that it was his own idea for Geffen to take over the project, because Wilson wanted to concentrate on his solo career and Porcupine Tree in 2012 and 2013, while Geffen wanted to do another Blackfield album right away in 2012, and Wilson felt guilty about holding him back. http://www.innerviews.org/inner/wilson.html

On January 29 and January 30, both Geffen and Wilson were in the studio working on vocals and guitar for the upcoming, currently untitled, fourth album. http://starsdie.com/wp/steven-wilson-aviv-geffen-will-be-in-the-studio-for-blackfield-iv-tomorrow/ http://twitter.com/#!/blackfieldband/status/163962177668132865 Wilson stated that he will contribute lead vocals to only one song, but is also contributing "a bunch of guitar parts" and "arranging backing vocals". http://www.innerviews.org/inner/wilson.html Despite his lessened role, he still said that he was "protective of the Blackfield legacy", and that the next album would "still sound like a quintessential Blackfield album." http://www.innerviews.org/inner/wilson.html One of the guest vocalists that Wilson had alluded to before, was revealed to be Vincent Cavanagh of the band Anathema , who recorded vocals for a track. http://starsdie.com/wp/steven-wilson-aviv-geffen-working-with-anathemas-vincent-cavanagh-on-blackfield-iv/

Cross-overs

There has been some overlap between Blackfield and Geffen and Wilson's other projects. The songs "Scars," "Cloudy Now," "Glow," "1,000 People," "Epidemic," "End of the World" and "Zigota" had originally been written by Geffen in Hebrew before being translated into English and adapted by Blackfield, even if they hadn't all been released on his recordings yet. On the other hand, the song "Christenings" was originally conceived during Wilson's writing sessions for Porcupine Tree's 2005 release Deadwing , but was released on Blackfield II instead. Additionally, the track "Feel So Low", off of Porcupine Tree's 2000 release Lightbulb Sun , was re-recorded by Blackfield and added to the record, LP album|LP -only version of Blackfield's self-titled album. http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/blackfield-st2005 In this version, Geffen sings the first verse in Hebrew .

In regards to live performances, Blackfield has performed Porcupine Tree's "Waiting" and "Feel So Low", as well as covering Alanis Morissette 's " Thank U ," which Wilson had previously recorded solo for his own Steven Wilson discography#Cover Version|Cover Versions series. http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/118744-blackfield-nyc-blackfield-live-in-new-york-city

Musicians

Steven Wilson – Singing|lead vocals , lead guitar , Keyboard instrument|additional keyboards (2001–present)

Aviv Geffen – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards (2001–present)

Seffy Efrati – bass guitar (2004–present)

Tomer Z – drum kit|drums , Percussion instrument|percussion (2004–present)

Eran Mitelman – piano , Keyboard instrument|keyboards (2007–present)

Chris Maitland – drums, percussion (2001–2004)

Daniel Salomon – piano, keyboards (2004–2007)

Discography

Studio albums

January, 2004	Blackfield
February, 2007	Blackfield II
March, 2011	Welcome to My DNA (UK chart peak: #139http:/ / www.zobbel.de/ cluk/ 110409cluk.txt)

DVDs

October, 2007

Live in New York City

Singles

November 2003	"Hello"
December 2003	"Pain"
March 2004	"Blackfield"
May 2004	"Cloudy Now"
January 2007	"Once"
March 2007	"Miss U"
March 2007	"My Gift of Silence"
March 2011	"Waving"

Copyright Citations

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