No Man: Английский арт-поп дуэт с богатой историей.

English art pop duo

No Man are an English art pop duo, formed in 1987 as No Man Is an Island (Except the Isle of Man) by singer Tim Bowness and multi instrumentalist Steven Wilson. The band has so far produced seven studio albums and a number of singles/outtakes collections (including 2006's career retrospective All the Blue Changes). The band was once lauded as "conceivably the most important English group since The Smiths" by Melody Maker music newspaper, and a 2017 article of Drowned in Sound described them as "probably the most underrated band of the last 25 years". Originally creating a sample based proto trip hop/ambient/electropop styled music, No Man has pursued a more organic, diverse and band oriented sound in subsequent years. Drawing from a diverse mix of singer songwriter, post rock, minimalist, progressive rock, jazz and contemporary ambient sources for inspiration, No Man's musical style is distinctive yet difficult to categorise.

Steven Wilson originally launched the band in 1986 as a solo project called "No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle of Man)", recording an instrumental track called "From a Toyshop Window", which blended progressive rock with synth pop. In 1987, he linked up with singer, lyricist and occasional guitarist and keyboard player Tim Bowness, who at the time was singing with Liverpool based art pop band, Plenty (not to be confused with the more recent Japanese indie rock band, Plenty). Bowness and Wilson continued working together on recording sessions for the next two years. Violinist Ben Coleman joined the project after becoming involved with recording sessions in late 1988. The band established a four piece live line up in 1989 by adding guitarist Stuart Blagden (who had previously played with Bowness in the Manchester based band, Still). No Man Is An Island released their debut single, a waltz time ballad called "The Girl From Missouri", on Plastic Head Records in mid 1989. The band was disappointed with the single and soon disowned it. Subsequent band evolutions saw flirtations with aggressive synth pop (on the "Swagger" cassette EP) and the departure of Blagden (who would later become a jazz and Latin music player).

By 1990, No Man Is an Island had shortened their name to No Man and become a voice/violin/guitar and tapes trio (with Wilson handling all other instruments and programming in the studio). The first release under the No Man name was the self pressed June 1990 single release, "Colours" (a cover of the 1960s Donovan Leich song with crooned vocals and a dub loop arrangement anticipating the later arrival of trip hop). The single achieved Melody Maker, Sounds and Channel 4 teletext "Singles of the Week" accolades and was re released by Liverpool based label Probe Plus in October, 1990. The attention which "Colours" had received led to No Man being signed by Dave Massey to a long term music publishing songwriting agreement with independent Hit & Run Music Publishing. Massey soon secured a recording contract with the independent label One Little Indian. During this period, the band received highly positive UK music media support (including more Singles of the Week in Melody Maker, Sounds and Irish music paper, Hot Press) and had 2 indie top 20 hits ("Days in the Trees" and "Ocean Song") plus a Billboard Top 40 dance hit (the US only single, "Taking It Like A Man", at No. 34). No Man’s debut mini album (a compilation of EP tracks called Lovesighs An Entertainment) was released in April 1992, and in October of the same year the band toured England with a six piece line up including three ex members of the band Japan – Mick Karn, Steve Jansen and (most significantly) keyboardist Richard Barbieri, who had been recruited by Massey. The band's first full length album (the more pop oriented Loveblows & Lovecries A Confession) followed in May 1993. By this time, the live band included bass player Silas Maitland and the (unrelated) drummer Chris Maitland. (The latter would join both Wilson and Richard Barbieri in the live lineup of Porcupine Tree). In 1994 No Man released their second album Flowermouth. Although the band parted company with violinist Ben Coleman during the sessions, he made a significant contribution towards most of the tracks on the record. No Man also stopped performing live in 1994, and would not return to the stage until 2006.

Two albums released in 1995 closed the first phase of the band's career a set of ambient dance reworkings of Flowermouth material called Flowermix and a compilation of the band's more ambient and atmospheric One Little Indian era B sides and rarities called Heaven Taste. With each subsequent release the band moved further away from its more conventional pop and rock roots, mirroring the evolution of artists such as Talk Talk, David Sylvian, Radiohead, Scott Walker and Kate Bush. Since the mid 1990s, No Man has released a steady stream of albums via Snapper Music and 3rd Stone/Adasam, featuring guests such as Fripp, Barbieri, Jansen, Theo Travis and Pat Mastellotto. The band has maintained a healthy cult following as well as continued critical acclaim. 1996's Wild Opera and its 1997 companion release Dry Cleaning Ray (both released on 3rd Stone Ltd.) explored a combination of darker dance sounds, experimental art rock and deep trip hop, while maintaining No Man's particular skill with ballads. An EP of all new material, Carolina Skeletons, followed in 1998. In 1999, the band released Speak, a compilation of mostly unreleased early ambient songs recorded a decade previously but which Bowness and Wilson considered to be of equal merit to the music released on One Little Indian or 3rd Stone Ltd.