Wild Opera

In 1996, No-Man announced their return on a new label, 3rd Stone Ltd., home of Spacemen 3 and Bark Psychosis. This was led by the Housewives Hooked on Heroin single (a Hot Press "Single of the Fortnight"), a taster for the Wild Opera album which followed that autumn.

Originally, the follow-up to Flowermouth album was meant to be the product of writing sessions that followed almost immediately after the release of said album. According to Bowness, "by the middle of 1994, we’d written around 35 minutes of material." One relevant piece that emerged from these initial sessions was the 20-minute electronic/disco Love You to Bits, which would only be completed and released 25 years later as a full-length album itself. The other was "Song About The Heart," which later evolved into "Lighthouse," released seven years later as one of the mainstays from the Returning Jesus album.[7]

Bowness and Wilson had recently finished recording and releasing albums with their respective side projects. Firstly, Flame, a collaboration between Bowness and Richard Barbieri, a recent No-Man collaborator/guest along with his former Japan bandmates Mick Karn and Steve Jansen. Secondly, Wilson, with his newly-established Porcupine Tree lineup (which included Barbieri) had worked on the band's third album The Sky Moves Sideways.[8]

In this line, Bowness claims there was "a need to distance ourselves from the gloss and control exhibited on those albums," and, consequently, "we decided to abandon the songs we’d been working on for the previous six months." Thus, "an abrupt about face resulted in the more spontaneous sessions that produced Wild Opera," as well as its accompanying EP/mini-album Dry Cleaning Ray.[9]

Accordingly, most of the album had emerged from a series of semi-spontaneous improvisations recorded over a few hours rather than planned-out attempts at songwriting, as recounted by Tim Bowness. He further described the album as "‘music on the move’. I wrote the lyrics in the studio as we were completing the ‘hourlongs’, or on the back of tickets on tube journeys home from the sessions.[10]

The raw results of such sessions appeared on the album and are exemplified by two tracks. "Libertine Libretto," for instance, was recorded on August 17, 1994, between 3 and 4 pm,[11] while "Hit the Ceiling," a b-side from the "Housewives Hooked on Heroin" single, was recorded on September 20, 1995 between 1 and 2 pm.[12]

"Taste My Dream" was one of the few pre-composed tracks on the album, a demo of which was originally recorded during the 1993-1994 sessions for Flame.[13]

The title track itself is unlisted and appears as a 'hidden' bonus track.

Sample credits

• "Pretty Genius" contains samples of "Walk On By", written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and performed by Isaac Hayes.
• "Dry Cleaning Ray" contains samples of "Fugue in D Minor", written by Johann Sebastian Bach and performed by Egg.

• Tim Bowness – vocals, tapes, words
• Steven Wilson – instruments, tapes, backing vocals (2, 5)

with:

• Richard Barbieri – sample material
• Natalie Box – violins (1, 2)
• Mel Collins – sample material, saxophone (1)
• Robert Fripp – sample material