Colin Edwin

Colin Edwin was born in Melbourne, Australia on 2 July 1970. In December 1993 he joined the British progressive rock band, Porcupine Tree. He plays bass guitar, double bass and guimbri.

In 2001 Edwin played double bass on Returning Jesus by the British 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 (35" as opposed to the "standard" 34" scale for 4-string basses), a Euro 4LX-35[2] 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".[3] For the second leg of the Fear of a Blank Planet Tour starting in October 2007 a ReBop Deluxe FM[4] 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[5] and Spector Medium Stainless Steel Bass Strings on his fretted Spector basses.[3]

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,[6] both available through Burning Shed.[7]

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.[1] 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.[8]

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.[9]

Also in 2011, Edwin worked with American guitarist Jon Durant on the album Dance of the Shadow Planets[10] and the two collaborated further on the album Burnt Belief[11] released on the Alchemy Records label in 2012.[12] Their third collaboration, Etymology, was released in October 2014.[13]

Colin has also collaborated with Italian bassist Lorenzo Feliciati, resulting in the album Twinscapes, released on RareNoise in 2014.[14] 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[15] Colin is known to have an interest in photography and also took the cover image for the album.[16]

In mid 2014 it was announced that Colin would be joining experimental jazz rock band Henry Fool[17] 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.[18], Soul of an Octopus.,[19] and Ramagehead,.[20]

Colin recorded the bass lines for the instrumental rock musical collective Armonite, releasing the albums The Sun is New each Day in 2015[21] and And the Stars above in 2018, the latter published by Cleopatra Records.[22]

Colin has also collaborated with Ukrainian female vocal duo Astarta, playing concerts in London and Ukraine [23] and releasing a full-length album in April 2016.[24]

Solo Albums

With Ex-Wise Heads

With Lorenzo Feliciati as Twinscapes

With Metallic Taste of Blood

With Obake

With Jon Durant

With O.R.k.

with Tim Bowness

With Astarta as Astarta/Edwin

With Endless Tapes

With Gaudi (musician)

• 2012 Spector USA Series Bolt-On NS-4H2-MM Black Cherry High Gloss Custom Shop 4-string fretless bass (Unlined Ebony fingerboard) with EMG MM-TW pick-ups, Aguilar OBP-3 preamp & Hipshot hardware[25]
• 2006 Spector Euro 4LX-35 4-string bass downtuned to "C Standard" (C/F/Bb/Eb) in Transparent Black.[26] strung with Spector Medium Stainless Steel strings.[3]
• BassLab Soul-IV in Black (used mainly as a studio bass and also as a backup/encore bass on the "Fear of a Blank Planet" tour[27]) strung with Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky strings.[3]
• BassLab Soul-IV in Metallic Orange (prototype bass borrowed from Heiko Hoepfinger used as a studio/recording bass[28]
• EBS TD 650 amplifier and two 4x10" Proline neodymium cabs.[3]
• EBS ValveDrive tube preamp/overdrive pedal, EBS MultiDrive distortion, EBS OctaBass octave, EBS MultiComp compressor, EBS UniChorus Chours, EBS Bass IQ Envelope Filter, EBS Tremolo, Boss HR-2 Harmonist, Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner.[3]

• 2007 Spector ReBop Deluxe FM unlined fretless bass in Natural Oil.
• 2004 Music Man Stingray fretted 4-string bass (Natural ash finish, Rosewood fretboard [29]) with a Hipshot Bass Extender installed for downtuning the E-string to D.
• 2005 Music Man Bongo 4-string bass in "Stealth (flat) Black" (used for the majority of the "Deadwing" tour as seen on the band's Arriving Somewhere... Live DVD and as a backup/encore bass on the 2007–08 "Fear of a Blank Planet" tour).
• Trace Elliott AH350 amplifier and speaker cabinets
• Tech 21 LM300 amplifier and two 4x10" speaker cabinets ("trashed on a European tour by some slack local crew"[30])

• Colin Edwin Official Website
• Colin Edwin's Blog page
• Article in "Bass Player" magazine September 2007