If a woman dies in her flat, does anybody hear?

The Porcupine Tree frontman is in Australia to tour his latest solo record Hand. Cannot. Erase., a concept album based on the life, and tragic death, of Joyce Carol Vincent.

Vincent was a British woman who made headlines when her body was discovered in her London apartment in 2006, three years after she died. She was an attractive, likeable woman and just 38 when she died, of a suspected asthma attack, so it surprised many that her death went unnoticed.

Vincent had withdrawn from family and friends in the years before she died. Her bills were still being paid from a welfare account, which meant the power and television were still on when she was discovered. A pile of wrapped Christmas presents were found beside her.

For Wilson the story raised questions about the modern world.

“When I first heard the story I was struck by how fantastic it was but how universal it was and how it was a story of the 21st century – a post internet mobile phone globalisation phenomenon,” he says. “I think that’s one of the most touching things about it that it has got this universality.

“You think that’s so unbelievable, how could that happen? But the more you begin to percolate and absorb it, you understand actually it’s very easy for something like that to happen. We live in a way that’s essentially disconnected from each other. That’s never been truer. We live in the physical world, the age of the internet, and it’s very easy to disappear from view and isolate ourselves from the rest of world and become invisible.

“It’s very easy to say how long would it be before your friends really miss you? So many distractions to be stressed about, to be obsessed about, that we’ve become very insular and self-obsessed, so if one of my friends dropped off the map for a little while, I wonder how long before I would become really conscious of that fact.”

Wilson will be showcasing the album in a series of live events in Australia this weekend. Known as a musician’s musician, the artist, who has recorded more than 25 albums and worked with the likes of Yoko Ono, Yes, King Crimson and XTC, has been receiving rave reviews for his performances.

Live performance by Steven Wilson

“The live show is a multimedia experience, which is a very pompous way of saying there are film and visual aspects to the show,” he says.

“You’re part of an immersive experience and my philosophy is when you’ve come into the venue I’ve got you and it’s up to me to create this experience for you right down to the music and visuals as you come in the venue and when you leave, a whole kind of experience for the senses.”

Hand. Cannot. Erase. follows the model of the classic concept album and Wilson says most of them, including his own, deal in concepts of alienation.

“You have to get back to the originator really, Pete Townshend and The Who,” he says.

“I think all concept albums, and I include my own, are kind of descended from Quadrophenia and Tommy because those were about individuals becoming alienated from the modern world, and most concept albums, The Wall by Pink Floyd, OK Computer by Radiohead, my own record, Hand. Cannot. Erase., they’re all more or less dealing with the same subject.

“The first one really was Tommy in 1969. For me that’s the first real classic one, the deaf, dumb, blind kid gradually isolated from the world around him.

“Isn’t that exactly what happened to Joyce Carol Vincent? Isn’t that exactly what happened to the main character in Pink Floyd’s The Wall? So I think that’s where it starts with the modern concept album.”

Steven Wilson plays The Metro, Sydney, tonight and Eatons Hill, Brisbane, on Sunday

Originally published as If a woman dies in her flat, does anybody hear?