Steven Wilson has announced his forthcoming ninth album, Requiem For A Village, set for release on November 6, 2026, via Fiction Records. The album will be available across multiple formats, with the first full-length track, “Requiem For A Village”, online now.
If Wilson’s eighth album, The Overview, explored the vastness and isolation of deep space, Requiem For A Village narrows its focus to a tiny, unknown corner of the British Isles. The album steps away from the modern world and imagines a village that exists beyond time and place.
For the record, Wilson adopted an intentionally organic approach, moving away from AI and corrective studio technologies in favour of real instrumentation, unpredictability and human imperfection. Recorded with regular collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Randy McStine, drummer Russell Holzman and vocalist Katherine Priddy, the album is described as intimate, ambitious, richly imaginative and knowingly eccentric.
Requiem For A Village also features narration written by Andy Partridge of XTC and voiced by David Tennant.
Set in a landscape that evokes The Wicker Man, the paintings of Stanley Spencer, the ghost stories of M. R. James and Algernon Blackwood, and the strange atmosphere of old British folklore and children’s television, the album is presented as a sepia-toned snapshot of a hidden world — a 54-minute piece of cinema for the ears.
Speaking about the album, Steven Wilson said: “I wanted to get back to a kind of music where you can hear the metaphorical thumbprints. Doubling down on the human gestures and flaws in the music, stuff that can’t be created using software.
“For example using only analogue synths with all their unpredictability, or not having instruments perfectly in tune. But it also lead to me picking up the violin, the oboe, or trying my hand on the drums — playing things I don’t really know how to play but getting something out of them that inspired me in ways I didn’t expect.
“Approaching the music with a sense of innocence and seeing where it took me. And where it took me was to the village.”
The first full-length track, “Requiem For A Village”, follows a recent teaser featuring an extract from the album’s narration. The song introduces listeners to Wilson’s lost corner of Britain through driving bass, scratchy guitars and a pummelling rush of drums that opens into something close to the soundtrack for an approaching apocalypse.
A “Village Session” video for the track is also available now, forming part of a series of live recordings from the album with Randy McStine and Russell Holzman.
Requiem For A Village tracklist
1. Swirl In A Lark’s Eye
2. Requiem For A Village
3. The Same River Twice
4. Now Departing
5. Hiraeth
6. On Chapel Slope
7. Murmuration
8. Curcus Fingerprint
9. A Basket Of Bees
10. Great Green Map
11. Wheel
12. The Old God Is Buried
Requiem For A Village will be available on CD, Blu-Ray, 140g double black vinyl, oxblood coloured double vinyl and as a boxset featuring 2 CDs and a Blu-Ray disc packaged in a 96-page hardback book box. Limited signed CDs will be available through Amazon, with CDs featuring exclusive packaging available through HMV.
As a preview for the album, Wilson will host Songs From The Village at The Social in central London on September 22. The night will feature a DJ set exploring music that inspired the album, from Boards Of Canada and Demdike Stare to Third Ear Band and the eerie atmosphere of British children’s television and ’70s broadcasts. All proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to charity.
Steven Wilson will also play two sold-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall on October 28 and 29, accompanied by his band, the Parallax Orchestra and Sansara choir, conducted by Tom Richards. The shows will feature previously unheard orchestral arrangements of The Overview and more, prepared especially for the performances.