Blackfield

Blackfield is a collaboratory musical group between Porcupine Tree founder and lead singer Steven Wilson and Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen.

Formation, self-titled debut (2000–2005):
Geffen, a fan of Porcupine Tree and Wilson, invited the band to play shows in Israel in 2000. He struck up a friendship with Wilson, leading to the two musicians recording together. Geffen performed backing vocals on two tracks on Porcupine Tree's In Absentia album, "The Sound of Muzak" and "Prodigal". Geffen, interested in growing a fanbase outside of Israel, approached Wilson about starting their own project, which would become Blackfield. Originally planned as an EP for a 2001 release, it eventually evolved into a 2004 self-titled full-length recording.

Outside of Israel, the band has received constant comparison to Porcupine Tree, Wilson's most popular project. In response, Wilson has explained:

...Porcupine Tree would never be so focused on the art of a 3 minute pop song, which I believe. Blackfield is all about the art of a great tradition pop song of verse-chorus-verse-chorus. Porcupine Tree has never been about that, although we have fraternized a little bit with the art of pop music. Porcupine Tree has always been more about horizontally complex long pieces and the album is an overall piece rather than lots of little pieces... Aviv is not a big fan of heavy music and he is not a big fan of long pieces so immediately the meeting point had to be somewhere where we were both focused on short melancholic songs.

In early 2004 the band debuted live on a couple of promotional TV performances in Israel. This line-up featured drummer Chris Maitland (drummer of Porcupine Tree from 1993 to 2002), who was replaced by Tomer Zidkyahu, for a European tour that followed in the Autumn of 2004.

Their first self-titled album was released in Israel and Europe in 2004, and the United States in 2005.

Blackfield II (2006–2009)

While the band's first album was created over a relatively long period of time, the follow-up album, Blackfield II, was created in one short burst of activity. Wilson and Geffen worked on their respective projects throughout the end of 2005, but in early 2006 Wilson moved to Israel for six months to work on the album. The album was released in February 2007 in Europe and March 2007 in the United States. In the same year, keyboardist Daniel Salomon left the band to continue his successful solo career. Salomon was replaced by Eran Mitelman, former keyboardist for popular Israeli hard rock band HaYehudim.

In a 2008 interview

Steven Wilson discussed Blackfield's future:

"I think we're going to tentatively start working on some new songs and that's as far as we've got regarding planning. I think there almost certainly will be another record. As with No-Man and my other projects, there's no reason to stop doing them as long as the music keeps flowing."

In January 2009, to promote his first English-language European release, Geffen went on a small tour of Europe with the Blackfield live band, including Wilson being billed as a special guest. Half of the set consisted of songs from the then yet to be released first English language solo album by Geffen while the rest was a selection of Blackfield songs. Wilson would also appear on three tracks from the album.

Welcome to my DNA (2010–present)

In April 2010, Aviv and Steven got into studio to begin writing the follow-up to Blackfield II. Welcome to my DNA was released on the 28th of March 2011 and supported by a European and US tour also their first show ever in Mexico.