''Schoolyard Ghosts'' is the sixth studio album by British

art rock Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that generally reflects a challenging or avant-garde approach to rock, or which makes use of modernist, experimental, or unconventional elements. Art rock aspires to elevate rock from entertainment to an ar ...

band

No-Man 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/outtake ...

. Recorded in the UK, France, Sweden and the USA and released on 12 May 2008, the album features contributions from Bruce Kaphan (

American Music Club American Music Club was an American, San Francisco-based indie rock band, led by singer-songwriter Mark Eitzel. Formed in 1982, the band released seven albums before splitting up in 1995. They reformed in 2003 and released two further albums. ...

Red House Painters Red House Painters were an American rock band formed in Atlanta, Georgia in 1988, before relocating to San Francisco, California in 1989. Originally formed by singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek and drummer Anthony Koutsos, the pair were soon joine ...

), drummers

Pat Mastelotto Lee Patrick Mastelotto (born September 10, 1955) is an American rock drummer and record producer. He has been a member of King Crimson, Stick Men, Mr. Mister and O.R.k., as well as working as a session drummer with XTC, The Pointer Sisters an ...

(

King Crimson King Crimson were an English progressive rock band formed in London in 1968 by Robert Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald (musician), Ian McDonald and Peter Sinfield. Guitarist Fripp remained the only constant member throughout the ...

) and

Gavin Harrison Gavin Richard Harrison (born May 28, 1963) is an English musician. He is best known for playing with the progressive rock bands Porcupine Tree (2002–2010; 2021–present), King Crimson (2008, and 2014–2021) and The Pineapple Thief (2016� ...

(

Porcupine Tree Porcupine Tree are an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned critical acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became ...

), saxophonist/flautist

Theo Travis Theo Travis (born 7 July 1964) is a British saxophonist, flautist and composer. He is a member of Soft Machine which he joined in 2006 while the group was still using the "Legacy" suffix and was a member of Gong from 1999 to 2010. Biography Tra ...

, and the London Session Orchestra arranged by Dave Stewart (

Hatfield and the North Hatfield and the North were an experimental Canterbury scene rock band that lasted from October 1972 to June 1975, with some reunions thereafter. Career In mid 1972 the band grew out of a line-up of ex-members of blues/jazz/rock band ...

Egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

, Stewart and Gaskin etc.). In his online diary

Tim Bowness Tim Bowness (born 29 November 1963) is an English singer and songwriter primarily known for his work as part of the band No-Man, a long-term project formed in 1987 with Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson. Music career In addition to recording albu ...

mentions that, despite following a difficult year and being typically melancholy in places, the tone of the album is more optimistic than anything the band have done before. He also says "All Sweet Things" and "Truenorth" are perhaps the pinnacle of the band's achievements. A promotional ''Schoolyard Ghosts'' microsite was created by the band's label, K-Scope. It first featured a music video for "Truenorth – Part Two" which was thereafter replaced for a video of the song "Wherever There Is Light". No-Man fan site "A Confession" has also created a dedicated ''Schoolyard Ghosts'' microsite featuring the video for "Truenorth – Part Two" and album lyrics. The No-Man

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

page also includes extracts from the album.

Reception

Reviews for the album have generally been very favourable, with positive reviews and interviews featured in ''

Classic Rock Classic rock is a radio format that developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the early-1990s, primarily focusing on comm ...

'' (UK), ''

Rock Sound ''Rock Sound'' is a British magazine that covers rock music. The magazine aims at being more " underground" and less commercial, while also giving coverage to better-known acts. It generally focuses on pop punk, post-hardcore, metalcore, punk, ...

'' (UK), '' Goldmine'' (USA), ''

Record Collector ''Record Collector'' is a British monthly music magazine focussing on rare and collectable records, and the bands who recorded them. It was founded in September 1979 and distributes worldwide. It is promoted as "the world’s leading authority o ...

'' (UK), ''Eclipsed'' (Germany), ''

Metal Hammer ''Metal Hammer'' is a heavy metal music magazine and website founded in 1983, published in the United Kingdom by Future, with other language editions published by different companies available in numerous other countries. ''Metal Hammer'' featu ...

'' (Germany), ''Metal Hammer'' (Poland), ''Free!'' (Finland), ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' (Mexico), ''Jam'' (Italy), and

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

. In June 2008, the album was No. 1 in Prog Archives' Member's Albums of the Year chart and No. 474 in

Rate Your Music Rate Your Music (often abbreviated to RYM) is an online encyclopedia of music releases and films. Users can catalog items from their personal collection, review them, and assign ratings in a five-star rating system. The site also features comm ...

's reader's albums of 2008. In October 2008, the album was No. 5 in the Eclipsed magazine's reader's charts. In January 2009, the album was rated No. 23 in the ''Eclipsed'' critic's end of year lists.

Formats

The album is available in a CD/DVD-A audiophile edition and comes in a

digipack Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage. Jewel case A ...

format with booklet and also features a 5.1 mix of the album, a photo gallery and videos for 3 songs. The first 2000 copies of the album obtained from the No-Man online store came with an exclusive 6 track, 20-minute, bonus disc of alternates and edits. It sold out within 2 weeks of the pre-release announcement. A second print of the album was issued in August 2014, replacing the DVD-A with a second CD of bonus material.Burning Shed page for 2CD reissue in August 2014
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Promotion

To promote the album, the band played its first performances for fifteen years in London, Düsseldorf and Zoetermeer. The London Bush Hall performance was recorded for the first No-Man's DVD, '' Mixtaped''.no-man a confession... NEWS

Track listing

"Beautiful Songs You Should Know" was written by Bowness with Giancarlo Erra of the Italian band Nosound and the two recorded an alternative version of the song for the album called "Warm Winter" which they released under the moniker Memories of Machines. The song "Mixtaped" is a reworked version of a Tim Bowness solo demo called "Schoolyard Ghosts". A proper recording of this version was later also included on "Warm Winter".

Bonus material

The original No-Man Store edition featured an exclusive 20-minute bonus disc of alternates and edits.

2014 Reissue bonus disc

A reissue will be printed in August 2014 which replaces the DVD-A with a second CD of bonus material. It collects most of the bonus disc listed above along with Bowness' home demos and bonus tracks from the "Wherever There is Light" single.

Personnel

No-Man

– vocals,

musical box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces Musical note, musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder (geometry), cylinder or disc to pluck ...

mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which causes a length of magnetic tape to contact a Capstan (tape recorder), capstan, which pulls i ...

, piano, chime guitars, vocal loops. *

Steven Wilson Steven John Wilson (born 3 November 1967) is an English musician. He is the founder, guitarist, lead vocalist, and songwriter of the rock band Porcupine Tree, as well as being a member of several other bands, including Blackfield, Storm Corrosi ...

– piano, acoustic and electric guitars, bass, keyboards,

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( ; or , : bells and : play) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a Musical keyboard, keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the v ...

, harmony vocals, musical box,

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument that has a piano-style musical keyboard, where sound is produced by means of mechanical hammers striking metal strings or reeds or wire tines, which leads to vibrations which are then converted into ele ...

, organ,

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...

harmonium The pump organ or reed organ is a type of organ that uses free reeds to generate sound, with air passing over vibrating thin metal strips mounted in a frame. Types include the pressure-based harmonium, the suction reed organ (which employs a va ...

, percussion, drum programming.

Additional personnel

– flute,

soprano sax The soprano saxophone is a small, high-pitched member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented in the 1840s by Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax. Built in B♭ an octave above the tenor saxophone (or rarely, slightly smaller ...

(tracks 4, 5 and 8). *

Peter Chilvers Peter Chilvers was an inventor, engineer and promoter of sailing and windsurfing. He is credited with an early version of a sail powered surfboard. He died from lung cancer on 26 February 2015. Life Chilvers had been an engineer for Lotus an ...

– samples from 'surfacing' (track 1). *

Colin Edwin Colin Edwin Balch is an Australian musician, specialising in fretted and fretless bass guitar, double bass and guimbri. Edwin first came to public attention as a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, in which he was bass ...

– fretless acoustic bass (track 2) *Rick Edwards – percussion (track 2) *Marianne De Chastelaine – cello (track 2) *

– drums, percussion (tracks 3 and 6) *Fabrice Lefebvre – yang t'chin (track 4) * Andrew Booker (credited as 'Andy Booker') – electronic percussion (track 4), drum loop (track 7) *Bruce Kaphan – pedal steel guitar (tracks 5 and 7) *Pete Morgan – bass (track 7) *

– drums (track 8) *Strings arranged by Dave Stewart and performed by the London Session Orchestra.

External links

No-Man's Official Website

at Kscope/Snapper Music.
"A Confession" – No-Man Fan Site
(includes a ''Schoolyard Ghosts'' microsite).
No-Man MySpace Page
(includes audio samples from the album).

References

{{Authority control No-Man albums 2008 albums Kscope albums