uk Top 40 2017

Steven Wilson is a twice Grammy-nominated producer, writer and performer, best known as founder and front man of British rock band Porcupine Tree. He has also produced and /or mixed albums for artists as diverse as Swedish metal band Opeth, Norwegian chanteuse Anja Garbarek, and progressive rock institutions King Crimson and Jethro Tull. He also co-wrote and sang a track from Pendulum's number one album Immersion. Porcupine Tree’s last album was a top 30 album in both the UK and USA, and the tour climaxed with sold out shows at Royal Albert Hall in London and Radio City Music Hall in New York.

Following in the footsteps of the hugely successful Twelve Inch Eighties and Twelve Inch Seventies ranges, comes the next collection Twelve Inch Nineties. Compiling rare extended and alternate mixes of some of the biggest hit singles of the 90s. With an eclectic array of artists featured across all titles, this is the most diverse Twelve Inch range to date.

Here is a great overview, in 58 individual tracks, of an important time in the life of one of the most important saxophonists in jazz. Lester Young (The Prez), was a genius of the music, spanning the shifting expression from the Swing years into Bebop, and becoming a pivotal figure in both. Yes, he was also persecuted and self-destructive, and plagued by mental and physical illness for most of his life, but his marvelous mind not only set the standard for generations of jazz saxophonists, but gave us an entire lexicon of hipster/beatnik language that has become part of American popular culture. Someone should make a movie about Lester Young.