Tim Bowness was born in Stockton Heath, Warrington, Cheshire in 1963. A turbulent adolescence left him responsible for his own destiny and with a hunger to express himself. Having immersed himself in music during his teens (courtesy of the remarkably cheap vinyl deals at his local record stores) Tim became a self-taught musical expert with a huge range of influences to draw on.

During the early 1980s, Tim made an underground name for himself around the North-West England art-rock scenes in Warrington, Manchester and Liverpool as the singer and frontman of various bands and as a voracious and determined pop strategist.

Beginning with The Roaring Silence, by 1983 he had moved onto Still - who were briefly hailed by Mark Radcliffe as the most important Manchester band since Joy Division. Despite the flash of hype, Still was a short-lived affair: but Tim kept in touch with guitarist Stuart Blagden (a.k.a The Still Owl) while moving on to other projects.

Tim's next band was the spiky, art-rocking After The Stranger, resulting in his first appearance on album (1986's 'Another Beauty Blooms') and his first collaboration with another future guitar foil (Michael Bearpark).

As After the Stranger disintegrated (with the other members moving towards avant-rock and electronica projects, ultimately including L.D.T), Tim and Michael teamed up with Brian Hulse to form Plenty. In this band, several of the initial outlines of No-Man's music were first drawn up - dark balladry, a cinematic edge, an inherent drama.

At the same time, Steven Wilson was making his own mark a hundred and seventy miles south-east. Born in 1967 in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, Steven grew up in the London satellite town of Hemel Hempstead. Like Tim, he had a broad and diverse musical taste (informed as much by Donna Summer or Karlheinz Stockhausen as by Pink Floyd or Abba) plus a hunger for exploration.

From childhood, Steven was fascinated by the possibilities of sound. Recording everything he could (much of it on home-made equipment built by his father, an electrical engineer) Steven become intent on becoming a record producer. Gradually turning his bedroom into a surprisingly effective recording studio (No-Man's Land), Steven also learnt guitar and keyboards to further his aims.

While still at school (with future Porcupine Tree bass player Colin Edwin), Steven established a reputation as producer, multi-skilled musician, and man-of-a-thousand-projects. These stretched from avant-garde industrial experiments to surprisingly accomplished teenage bands. The neo-progressive rock of Karma was the crucible for several songs which would later show up in Porcupine Tree and (as with the psychedelic Altamont project with keyboard player Simon Vockings) featured Steven's early collaborations with Porcupine Tree lyricist Alan Duffy.

These were only the most public Wilson projects - he was also seeding music paper demo pages and assorted record labels with innumerable demo cassettes under a variety of pseudonyms.

At some point in 1987, Steven was searching for bands to contribute to a compilation album he was assembling. Having read a review of After The Stranger's 'Another Beauty Blooms', he got in touch with Tim for the first time.

Steven and Tim met at a time when they both felt in need of new challenges. Their first tentative rehearsal in August 1987 yielded two solid songs - Faith's Last Doubt and Screaming Head Eternal - both of which were written and recorded in the course of a single afternoon. It soon became obvious that each provided the right challenge for the other, and that they were well-suited as working partners.

Back in 1986, Steven had created a solo instrumental (a cheerful mongrel of Steve Hackett prog rock and perky Associates synth pop) called From A Toyshop Window. He had credited it to a typically whimsical band name - No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle of Man). The name attached itself to the new project with Tim.

For the next two years, during time snatched from day-jobs and other band commitments, Tim and Steven accumulated songs and musical experiments in a free atmosphere. Various friends and colleagues contributed to the recordings - Colin Edwin, cellist and harmonica player Richard Felix, Michael and Brian from Plenty, Tim's former Still bandmate Stuart Blagden.

One significant new contributor was Ben Coleman, who'd responded to one of Steven's advertisement. From a mixed Mancunian and Israeli background, he was also a dynamic and flexible virtuoso on acoustic and electric violin, leaving a powerful impression on the tracks he was asked to play on.

The emerging music took two forms. One was the near-ambient, reverent material which would later be released on No-Man's 'Speak' album. The other was a punchier, rockier set of songs which demanded performance by a live rock band - which is eventually what happened.

The first live performances of No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man) featured Tim on vocals, Ben Coleman on violin, Stuart Blagden playing guitar and Steven on keyboards (as well as handling all other noises on tape). For their second gig, having entered the Hemel Hempstead "Bandsearch" competition as a joke, the new band walked off with the first prize. However much this might have amused them at the time, part of the prize was some professional studio time which gave them the opportunity to record their first single.

The song they chose - 'The Girl From Missouri' - had been the highlight of the live sets, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. However, the band hated the results, the single sold poorly, and Tim and Steven "inventively destroyed" the remaining copies.

The opportunity had not been entirely wasted, however, as the band had taken the opportunity to test out a few of their more meditative tracks on the b-side. This was the first airing on records of Night Sky Sweet Earth and The Ballet Beast, as well as a reworking of the Plenty song Forest Almost Burning (All three would later resurface on the 'Speak' album).

No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man) continued playing gigs throughout 1989. Their mixture of formal written material, improvised noise and art-rock theatrics didn't always entirely suit the college and London pub venues they were playing, but they remained committed to their work.

By the middle of June, however, Stuart Blagden had left the band. As the music began to lose its improvisatory edge, Stuart's guitar style (rooted in classical and jazz influences) no longer gelled with it, and neither he nor the other members were happy with the situation.

Shortening their name to the less cumbersome No Man Is An Island, the band opted to remain as a trio. Steven committed his keyboard parts to tape and took over the role of guitarist. His playing style was more direct than Stuart's, emphasising rock and funk. This (plus the aggressive demands of the pub circuit rock environment) gradually sidelined the band's ambient side. Tim and Steven's growing interest in hip-hop beats, and in using sampler technology, accelerated the process.

The 'Swagger' cassette EP, released in November, showed just how much the band had changed. Histrionic, and relying heavily on loud crashing beats and power chords, it featured four poppy songs. Two of these - Bleed and Life Is Elsewhere - proved to be survivors and would resurface in various forms in later years. The remainder would be strip-mined for various fragments for later songs (notably, one song was called Flowermouth).

'Swagger' made little more impact than 'The Girl From Missouri'. With a new decade approaching, another change in direction was needed.