Regular readers will know of my admiration for Steven Wilson throughout the years, with his various projects including Porcupine Tree and the solo album "Insurgentes." After reading through a few biographies, I discovered another project that Steven had created before Porcupine Tree. This was called No Man, on which I heard was more psychedelic and more early 90’s dance than the progressive Porcupine Tree we know and love. So with great anticipation I put in the documentary "Returning" to my DVD player and was surprised at the vast history the band had been through.

No-Man began around the late 80’s when Steven decided to record an instrumental track called ‘From A Toyshop Window’ and had elements of synth pop mixed with progressive rock. In 1989 he had met Tim Bowness who at the time was singing in experimental indie/pop band Plenty. From the first recording session the duo had two songs which were released such as ‘Screaming Head Eternal.’ For the collectors among us this can be found on the Plastic Head vinyl compilation "Expose It".

In 1989 No-Man's first single was released called ‘The Girl From Missouri,’ by then No-Man had grown into a live band with the additions of Ben Coleman and Stuart Blagden on violin and guitar. The single itself while it was mildly successful is no longer believed by the band to be what No-Man is about.

In 1990 No-Man went through what could be described as a more ‘mainstream era’ as Steven had put breakbeats and a dub-loop over Tim’s vocals on a cover of a Donovan track called ‘Colours’. This single garnered the attention of music journalist Chris Roberts and earned single of the week in Melody Maker, Sounds and the recently defunct Teletext service. This also led to the band gaining a contract with the One Little Indian label (the same label that had artists such as the Sugarcubes and The Shamen amongst it’s roster).

In 1994 the album "Flowermouth" showed more of a diverse output with refrences to Miles Davis, the minimalist music movement coming from New York and progressive rock (with contributions from amongst others King Crimson’s Robert Fripp). At the same time No-Man began to slowly move into more of an art-rock style, they decided to retire from the live stage and become more of a studio band. It would take fifteen years for No-Man to do a full performance (there was a brief set in 2006 as part of an event put on by Tim’s record label Burning Shed) which is where the other disc comes in.

August 29th 2008 in the Bush Hall, London is a show in which you can see the maturity of a band shine through as classic songs such as 'Days In the Trees' are reinterpreted to fit more of the art-rock manifesto, songs from more recent albums such as "Schoolyard Ghosts" are given an even more epic scale when projected to a sell out London crowd. There is even a guest appearance by Ben Coleman on the song ‘Things Change’.

The sound mix on this DVD is brilliant and makes clear the atmospheric sound from the sound of the rain coming into the right speaker on the headphones while guitar is played in the left at the end of the first track. The clarity of Tim Bowness’ vocals, the distortion of Steven’s guitar on ‘Lighthouse’. It's just crystal clear (and the reason I now understand why Steven has worked on remastering King Crimson’s work into 5:1).

Both parts of this double disc DVD are worth it from hardcore fan to novice as, while the documentary gives a very concise view of the band it also helps explain the history without getting too complicated. As an aside, the reason why Steven doesn’t do publicity for No-Man is that he believes it’s more Tim’s project than his in that regard). The Returning/Mixtaped DVD is highly recommended for a true experience of music in general.