IN SEARCH OF SPACE

Not content with being the crown prince of 21st century prog, Steven Wilson is now the No 1 go-to guy for surround sound remixes of rock reissues. He's also a member of six different bands (by our rough calculations) and his style-shifting solo career keeps his loyal fanbase guessing - and coming back for more. Now he has joined forces with one of his childhood heroes for an album that delves back into his concept-loving roots to "attain some perspective" on our universe. The Overviewer: Jeremy Allen. Lime Bandit: Kevin Westenberg

- 

'The universe doesn’t care about you,” Steven Wilson declares in no uncertain terms. “In terms of time and space, your life is infinitesimally irrelevant. And that is a beautiful thing.”

Wilson is grinning as he delivers this statement, reclining in a swivel chair in front of his impressive mixing desk at home in northwest London. Moreover, when he talks about “your life” he means all life, RC and its readership included. Why, he even means Paul McCartney's life, which is also infinitesimally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, or at least it will be when the Earth is consumed by the sun 7.59 billion years from now.

That's ultimately what his new album, The Overview, is about. It is presented as two long-form tracks: Objects Outlive Us, a 23-minute, eight-movement odyssey with some of the lyrics courtesy of XTC’s Andy Partridge, and the 18-minute title track on the flipside featuring his wife Rotem robotically reeling off facts and alluding to distant dwarf planets like Wolf 359 (7.86 light-years away). The hope is that we'll attain some perspective when our meagre existence is measured against an ever-expanding universe and a galaxy that’s been here for nearly 14 billion years. Maybe it'll even free us up to enjoy ourselves a bit?