Colin Edwin


Colin Edwin is an Australian musician. From 1993 to 2011 he was a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, where he played both fretted and fretless bass guitar, double bass and guimbri. Currently, Edwin is a member of Ex-Wise Heads, a long running collaboration with multi instrumentalist Geoff Leigh which mixes ethnic, ambient, and post-modern influences. He is also a member of a metal-influenced project, Random Noise Generator, and the band Metallic Taste of Blood.

Biography

Colin Edwin was born in Melbourne, Australia. In December 1993 he joined United Kingdom progressive rock band, Porcupine Tree. He plays bass guitar, double bass and guimbri.
In 2001 Edwin played double bass on Returning Jesus by the United Kingdom duo No-Man, which is Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson's side project.
Edwin is a jazz fan, and incorporates an atypical jazz-inspired style into his playing for a rock band. His main bass was a 1994 Wal Mark I four-string fretless bass for 10 years of live and studio use until giving it "a break" and semi-retiring it from the rigours of live touring in 2004. He used a Music Man StingRay and after a Music Man Bongo for the Deadwing Tour, which can be viewed on Porcupine Tree's DVD release Arriving Somewhere.... During that time period Edwin was introduced to Spector basses and purchased a EuroLX 4-string model in Natural Oil. The company then gave him a gift one of their extended scale-length models, a Euro 4LX-35 in transparent black. This proved to be useful as over half of their 2007 album, Fear of a Blank Planet was downtuned C/F/Bb/Eb to which the 35" scale length give better definition to the lower notes as well as the general rigours of touring – "The Euro 4LX-35 has a graphite-reinforced neck, which means it can come out of a freezing-cold trailer into a hot gig every night for a month without going out of tune or having any truss-rod problems". For the second leg of the Fear of a Blank Planet Tour starting in October 2007 a ReBop Deluxe FM unlined fretless bass in Natural Oil was used for the song "A Smart Kid" among others, and well as using his Music Man Bongo bass guitar as his spare or encore bass.
However, as of late September 2009 Edwin was back to using his fretted and fretless Wal Mark I 4-string basses for the majority of the tour supporting the Porcupine Tree release of The Incident which was played in full on this leg and which he plays approximately 85% of The Incident song-cycle on his Wal basses. His black Spector Euro 4LX-35 is used for the other 15% "heavy parts" that are downtuned to C Standard the liner notes for The Incident Edwin still endorses the Spector and Basslab basses as well as EBS amplifiers, speaker cabinets, and effects pedals. He endorses Ernie Ball Bass Strings for use on his Wal fretless bass and Spector Medium Stainless Steel Bass Strings on his fretted Spector basses.
As well as recording six albums with Ex-Wise Heads since 2000, Edwin has released two solo albums - Third Vessel in 2009 and PVZ in 2012, both available through Burning Shed.
In 2011 Edwin formed the band "Metallic Taste of Blood" with Italian musician Eraldo Bernocchi, Hungarian drummer Balazs Pandi and Keyboard player Jamie Saft, releasing an album on RareNoiseRecords.
With a new line-up consisting of former Prong drummer Ted Parsons and keyboard player Roy Powell, Metallic Taste of Blood released a second album "Doctoring the Dead" in May 2015, also on RareNoise.
Colin has continued working with Eraldo Bernocchi in the newest line-up of the band Obake, alongside vocalist Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari with their second album entitled Mutations, which was released in October 2014 on RareNoise.
Also in 2011, Edwin worked with American guitarist Jon Durant on the album Dance of the Shadow Planets and the two collaborated further on the album Burnt Belief released on the Alchemy Records label in 2012. Their third collaboration, Etymology, was released in October 2014.
Colin has also collaborated with Italian bassist Lorenzo Feliciati, resulting in the album Twinscapes, released on RareNoise in 2014. The Twinscapes album also features contributions from Nils Petter Molvær, David Jackson, Roberto Gualdi and Andi Pupato, and was mixed by bassist and producer Bill Laswell
Colin is known to have an interest in photography and also took the cover image for the album.
In mid 2014 it was announced that Colin would be joining experimental jazz rock band Henry Fool as well as participating in recording new material for a future album.
In 2015 Colin joined Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, guitarist Carmelo Pipitone and drummer Pat Mastelotto in a new band "O.R.k." releasing the albums Inflamed Rides., Soul of an Octopus., and Ramagehead,.
Colin recorded the bass lines for the instrumental rock musical collective Armonite, releasing the albums The Sun is New each Day in 2015 and And the Stars above in 2018, the latter published by Cleopatra Records.
Colin has also collaborated with Ukrainian female vocal duo Astarta, playing concerts in London and Ukraine and releasing a full-length album in April 2016.

Discography (Outside of [Porcupine Tree])

;Solo Albums
YearTitleLabel
2009Third VesselHard World
2012P.V.Z.Hard World
2015Mesh E.P.Hard World

;With Ex-Wise Heads
YearTitleLabel
2002No Grey MatterHard World
2003Time and Emotion StudyHard World
2006Holding Up the SkyHard World
2007Liquid AssetsHard World
2010Celestial DisclosureTonefloat
2011SchemataHard World

;With Lorenzo Feliciati as Twinscapes
;With Metallic Taste of Blood
YearTitleLabel
2012Metallic Taste of BloodRareNoise
2015Doctoring the DeadRareNoise

;With Obake
YearTitleLabel
2014MutationsRareNoise
2016DraugrRareNoise

;With Jon Durant
YearTitleLabel
2011Dance of the Shadow PlanetsAlchemy
2012Burnt BeliefAlchemy
2014EtymologyAlchemy
2016EmergentAlchemy

;With O.R.k.
YearTitleLabel
2015Inflamed RidesHard World
2017Soul of An OctopusRareNoise
2019RamageheadKscope

with Tim Bowness
YearTitleLabel
2014Abandoned Dance Hall DreamsInside Out
2015Stupid Things That Mean The WorldInside Out
2017Lost In The Ghost LightInside Out

;With Astarta as Astarta/Edwin
;With Endless Tapes
YearTitleLabel
2013Endless Tapes EPHard World
2016Brilliant WavesHard World

;With Gaudi

Current equipment