2001 Silverbullit - Citizen Bird
Choosing and listing your favorite music has more to do with your current mood than with your long-term taste. Once I decided to highlight this album as the album of 2023, my next thought was that it is the second album on the list that Steven Wilson has somehow had to do with, but after looking through the list I could see that this was not the case. If I had chosen my favorite album of 2010 today, Killing Joke's Absolute Dissent would probably have had to give way to Mikael Åkerfelt's (Opeth) and Steven Wilson's collaboration, Storm Corrosion.
Now with his seventh solo album, he has at least made it onto the list. The former bandleader of the legendary band Porcupine Tree has managed to work off a lot of musicians during his solo career and the list of contributors always contains at least 10 names. Sometimes famous - sometimes unknown, but being given the opportunity to participate on one of Steven Wilson's albums is definitely something to add to your CV.
Steven Wilson has not only provided the world with his own compositions, but is also frequently hired as a producer. Among other things, by the Opeth already in the early 2000s.
The Harmony Codex is a package containing 10 songs that span over 64 minutes. In my world, the album's title is the only right one, based solely on the aforementioned layout, and when you open the first parchment, you are met with extensive oriental tones that in turn create an expectation of an introduction of rhythms in a corresponding soundscape. But Steven Wilson gives here another example of his need and ability to create contrasts that ultimately all but usually end up in a unified soundscape.
Contrasting wholes, yes. At worst, the entire album can be experienced as scattered considering the direction of the individual songs. At best, you can experience the album as a prime example of how influences from the entire history of popular music can be gathered into a natural whole.
During his solo career, Steven Wilson has mixed masterful albums with solid sleeping pills, and with The Harmony Codex we get a balanced hit both in terms of production and arrangement.