Porcupine Tree

] .

Wilson sent out copies of "Tarquin's Seaweed Farm" to several people he felt would be interested in the recordings. The underground UK magazine "Freakbeat" was going through the process of starting their own record company when they received the cassette. The tape received mild reviews, but Porcupine Tree was soon asked to contribute to a compilation of up-and-coming underground psychedelic artists. This process was slow, taking eighteen months before completion. During this period, Wilson continued to work on new material, and in the wake of 1990, he released "The Love, Death & Mussolini E.P.", issued in a very limited run of 10 copies, remaining an extremely rare, collectible piece, comprised of nine at-the-time-unreleased tracks, as a preview for the upcoming second album. The EP was followed, over the same year, by "The Nostalgia Factory", an album that grown Porcupine Tree's underground fanbase, though the band still carried on the charade of being a '70s rock legend.

"On the Sunday of Life..." and "Up the Downstair" (1991-1994)

The newly formed "Feakbeat" magazine editor's record label Delerium, agreed to reissue the cassettes "Tarquin's Seaweed Farm" and "The Nostalgia Factory". A compilation album was also released, as planned, under the title of "A Psychedelic Psauna", featuring the Porcupine Tree track "Linton Samuel Dawson".

Wilson was invited shortly afterwards to sign with Delerium as one of the label's founder artists. He was originally invited to publish a double album of his two cassettes, but he decided to put instead what he discerned as the best of both tapes onto a single album, which was released in mid 1991 as "On the Sunday of Life...". The rest of the music from the initial tapes was released on the limited edition, compilation album "Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape".

Then in 1992, Delerium released "On the Sunday of Life..." as an edition of 1,000 copies, complete with a deluxe gatefold sleeve. The album sold out shortly after it shipped, but pressure from public and press alike ensured that it was reproduced, along with a CD version. The album featured future concert favourite and frequent encore song "Radioactive Toy". By 2000, "On the Sunday of Life..." had racked up sales of more than 20,000 copies] .

All three new members of the group had worked with Steven on various projects over the preceding years (Richard Barbieri and Chris Maitland had been part of No-Man's touring band) and all were excellent musicians sympathetic to the sound and direction of Porcupine Tree. The new line up had immediate chemistry as illustrated by the "Spiral Circus" album (issued on vinyl in 1997) which contained recordings from their first ever 3 performances, including a BBC Radio One session for Mark Radcliffe, an early champion of the group.

"The Sky Moves Sideways" and "Signify" (1995-1997)

The next album would not emerge until early 1995, but was preceded by the classic "Moonloop" EP, the last 2 tracks to be recorded during the album sessions and the first to feature the new band.

Released in 1995, the band's third studio album, "The Sky Moves Sideways" became a success among prog fans, and Porcupine Tree were hailed as the Pink Floyd of the nineties. Wilson would later lament this, stating "I can't help that. It's true that during the period of "The Sky Moves Sideways", I had done a little too much of it in the sense of satisfying, in a way, the fans of Pink Floyd who were listening to us because that group doesn't make albums any more. Moreover, I regret it."]

Meanwhile the fanbase of the band kept on growing, especially in Italy where airplay on a popular radio show had turned the band into a teenagers' favourite, a remarkable crowd compared to the more prog rock oriented listeners elsewhere. Then in March 1997, they played across three nights in Rome to an audience that surpassed the 5,000 people. All three dates were recorded for use in the 1997 live album "Coma Divine - Recorded Live in Rome" that was released as a goodbye to Delerium Records, which felt it could no longer offer the kind of resources the band needed in order to continue to build its profile worldwide] . In June the band played a short US tour, starting with an appearance in the famous NEARfest of Pennsylvania to culminate in a sold out show at the Bottom Line in New York City. Shortly afterwards Porcupine Tree announced that they had signed a new international record deal with Lava/Atlantic Records.

"In Absentia" (2002-2004)

In February 2002 Porcupine Tree's first line-up change occurred when drummer Chris Maitland departed after eight years with the band. The band welcomed drummer and longtime acquaintance Gavin Harrison to the line-up. As a major retrospective box set of the band's early work, was released "". The band commenced recording their first major label album, drawing from a pool of 30 new songs written by Steven in the previous two years.

Recording sessions took place at Avatar Studios in New York] .

Later on, Mike Bennion created a MySpace page dedicated to the prospective "Deadwing" film, in which he posted the first fifteen pages of the script and included a trailer [] and peaking at #59 on the United States Billboard 200 [] . Later in 2008, when the tour resumed, the band performed their first ever shows in Australia.The lyrics of the album deal with common behaviour tendencies and other issues concerning society (especially youth) in the beginning of the 21st century such as bipolar disorder, attention deficit disorder, drugs, alienation caused by technology [cite web|url=http://www.progressiveworld.net/html/modules.php?id=76&name=Interviews&rop=showcontent|title="ProgressiveWorld.net"|date=2007-07-06|accessdate=2008-04-05] and depravation of youth.

Wilson: "My fear is that the current generation of kids who're being born into this information revolution, growing up with the Internet, cell phones, iPods, this download culture, 'American Idol,' reality TV, prescription drugs, PlayStations — all of these things kind of distract people from what's important about life, which is to develop a sense of curiosity about what's out there." [cite web | url = http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1555478/20070323/porcupine_tree.jhtml | title = "Porcupine Tree's Wilson Talks Complex New LP, Project With Opeth's Akerfeldt" | publisher=MTV News | date= 2007-03-23 | accessdate=2008-04-12]

The concept of the album was inspired mainly by Bret Easton Ellis novel "Lunar Park" [cite web | url = http://www.caerllysimusic.co.uk/contents/en-uk/d77.html | title = Interview with Steve Wilson in Preston 53 Degrees venue | publisher = Caerllysi Music | accessdate = 2007-04-20] and the title is a nod to Public Enemy's album, "Fear of a Black Planet", both albums sharing the particularity to reflect the happenings affecting society in the world at the time, while racism were the main issue among young people when Public Enemy's album was released, Wilson sees "in the 21st century what's replaced race relations as the number 1 concern for young people is a kind of terminal boredom, a generation X thing, it's the blank generation"cite web | url = http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=37160&FID=47 | title = "Interview with Steven Wilson at ProgArchives Forum" | date = 2007-04 | accessdate= 2007-05-08] . The album features collaborations of Rush's Alex Lifeson and King Crimson's Robert Fripp.

A new EP called "Nil Recurring" was released on 17 September 2007, featuring four unreleased tracks from the "Fear of a Blank Planet" sessions, and also includes contributions from Robert Fripp. The second leg of the current tour started on 3 October 2007, now promoting new music from the EP. "Nil Recurring" entered the [cite web|url =http://theseaweedfarm.blogspot.com/2007/11/nil-recurring-on-peaceville-records.html|title =The Seaweed Farm: Nil Recurring on Peaceville Records| accessdate =2007-11-25] .

On 5 November 2007, "Fear of a Blank Planet" won the "Album of the Year" award for the 2007 "Classic Rock" magazine awards [cite web | url = http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/page/classicrock?entry=oh_what_a_night | title = "Classic Rock - Oh, what a night!" | date = 2007-11-06 | accessdate= 2008-04-08] . In December, 2007, it was nominated for a "Best Surround Sound Album" Grammy though "Love" by The Beatles won the award [cite web | url = http://www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/50th_Show/list.aspx#28 | title = "GRAMMY.com - 50th Annual GRAMMY Nominations List" | date = 2007-12-06 | accessdate= 2007-12-06] . In January, 2008, was voted "Best Album of 2007" by readers of the Dutch Progressive Rock Page [cite web|url =http://www.dprp.net/dprpoll/2007/index.php|title = DPRPoll 2007 Results|accessdate =2008-04-05] . The LP version of "Fear of a Blank Planet" includes the "Nil Recurring" EP tracks.

A recording from an 4 October 2007 in-store, mostly acoustic, performance at Park Avenue CDs in Orlando (Florida) was released on 18 February 2008 on CD under the name of "We Lost The Skyline" [cite web|url =http://theseaweedfarm.blogspot.com/2008/02/nil-recurring-and-we-lost-skyline.html|title =The Seaweed Farm: Nil Recurring and We Lost The Skyline released today!| accessdate =2008-02-18] . The title is a reference to the lyrics of "The Sky Moves Sideways (Phase One)", which was the opening song on the live set. The album was released on vinyl of 21 March 2008 [cite web|url =http://theseaweedfarm.blogspot.com/2008/03/we-lost-skyline-vinyl-edition.html|title =The Seaweed Farm: We Lost The Skyline vinyl edition| accessdate =2008-03-21] . It was originally intended to be a full-band show, but lack of space in the store determined that only the two guitarists, Steven Wilson and John Wesley, played.

According to Porcupine Tree's manager, Andy Leff, the band plans to release a live album in September, 2008cite web|url=http://bitstream.soundandvisionmag.com/blog/2008/01/scoop-ptree-in.html|title=Bitstream: PTree in action, Crimson in surround!|publisher=Sound and Vision|date=2008-01-22|accessdate=2007-03-30] . Wilson commented that the album will be issued through Roadrunner Recordscite web|url=http://www.imhotep.no/?did=9076548|title=Imhotep - Interviews/Articles - PORCUPINE TREE - COMMUNICATION?|date=2008-02-27|accessdate=2008-04-24] . However, the live record is currently put on hold without a known future. This was confirmed by Gavin Harrison on the Drummerworld forum's post #2540 of Gavin's thread [cite web|url=http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showpost.php?p=461629&postcount=2540|title=Gavin Harrison here! - Page 64 - DRUMMERWORLD OFFICIAL DISCUSSION FORUM|publisher=Drummerworld|date=2008-07-22|accessdate=2008-10-06] . The band also announced through its website they will start a short European tour in October in order to shoot their second live DVD. The filming will take place on 15 October and 16, 2008 in the Netherlands at the 013 Tilburg venue [cite web|url=http://www.porcupinetree.com/news.cfm#1568|title=Porcupine Tree - News|date=2008-06-05|accessdate=2008-06-23] . In this leg of the tour the band will play for the first time as headliners in Portugal.

Musical style

Influences

As a teenager, Wilson was a fan of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. From this starting point, his interest in music progressed on a cyclic path. When he discovered seventies music and progressive rock, his interest in metal diminished in favour of experimental music. He later (in the 2000s) discovered bands like Gojira, Mastodon, Neurosis and Meshuggah, which restored his faith in metal music. "For a long time I couldn't find where all these creative musicians were going…", Wilson said, "and I found them, they were working in extreme Metal". Shortly thereafter he went to produce three consecutive albums by Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth and this had a considerable influence in his further songwritingcite web|url=http://www.metalstorm.ee/pub/interview.php?interview_id=453|title=Porcupine Tree interview (01/2008)|publisher=Metal Storm|date=2008-01-01|accessdate=2008-04-07] .This shift in influence explains why the musical range of Porcupine Tree can be split into three phases, namely from long psychedelic and space rock pieces in early works, to shorter pop rock songs in late nineties, and darker more metal-oriented songs in the beginning of the 21st century. There is also some noticeable influence from krautrock and electronic music since Wilson sympathizes with bands such as Can, Neu!, Tangerine Dreamcite web|url=http://www.swhq.co.uk/bass_communion_interview.cfm|title="A interview with Steven Wilson regarding Bass Communion, by Geoff Kieffer - Steven Wilson Headquarters|date=2004-02-10|accessdate=2008-04-10] , Squarepusher, Aphex Twin and artists like Klaus Schulze and Conrad Schnitzler between others. Wilson has also mentioned in many occasions to have a big respect for Trent Reznor as a composer and musician [cite web|url=http://www.alternative-zine.com/interviews/en/110|title="Alternative-Zine.com - Interviews - Porcupine Tree lead guitarist/singer/songwriter Steven Wilson|date=2007-06-26|accessdate=2008-04-07] cite web|url=http://www.rockeyez.com/interviews/int-porcupine-tree.html|title="Interview: Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree)"|publisher=Rock Eyez|date=2005-05-12|accessdate=2008-04-07] .

Characteristics

People often describe the music of Porcupine Tree as melancholic, and though it is does not seem to be directly linked to Steven Wilson's personality. He said music is a way for him to channel all his negative feelingscite web|url=http://www.innerviews.org/inner/ptree.html|title="Innerviews: Porcupine Tree - Shadows and light"|accessdate=2008-04-08] , and "an exorcism of those elements within"cite web|url=http://www.innerviews.org/inner/ptree2.html|title="Innerviews: Porcupine Tree - Cinematic catharsis"|accessdate=2008-04-08] , finding it "easier to write songs about the negative side of the world than it is about the happy side of the world." At the NEARfest festival in 2001 before performing "Stop Swimming", he said "the saddest songs are also the most beautiful". Porcupine Tree is notable for being an album-oriented band, making very conceptual records where many songs are related to each other. Even so, each Porcupine Tree song has a distinguishable personality. Wilson himself explains:

"The important thing with Porcupine Tree is that all our songs have a unique sound world that they inhabit. I don't like the idea of any song sounding like any other song. So most of the time it's a case of finding the sound world first whether it be a texture or a drum rhythm that sets you off on a certain musical path, or particular musical atmosphere, or flavor."

In their records, the band included mellotron, hammered dulcimer and guimbri among other unusual instruments for a rock band. acoustic guitars and piano are typical of their sound, making them instantly recognizable, both instruments are present in all Porcupine Tree's recordings. Defying categorizations through time, Porcupine Tree music has maintained very atmospheric (heavily helped by the presence of Barbieri on the keyboards), cinematic (Wilson is a declared fan of American filmmaker David Lynch) [cite web|url=http://www.knac.com/article.asp?ArticleID=3724|title="KNAC.COM - Features - Interview With Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson|date=2005-06-25|accessdate=2008-04-11] [cite web|url=http://www.myspace.com/therealstevenwilson|title="Steven Wilson's MySpace"|accessdate=2008-04-11] , textural and very experimental, often fusing many genres in a single track. "Very layered, very produced, very arranged and [with] complex arrangements" is the way Wilson tries to describe the sound of the bandcite web|url=http://www.highfidelityreview.com/features/porcupine_tree.asp|title="Porcupine Tree In Absentia DVD-Audio - Steven Wilson Interview|publisher=HighFidelityReview.com|date=2004-03-07|accessdate=2008-04-08] . Apart from their regular edition, the albums "Stupid Dream", "Lightbulb Sun", "In Absentia", "Deadwing" and "Fear of a Blank Planet" are available in DTS (5.1 Surround Sound) mix; this mixing technique has become a tradition for the band in the last years.

Genre discord

Porcupine Tree are often categorised as a progressive rock band. Many listeners familiar with the group label them as such. Steven Wilson has been noted in the past to express a certain dislike for this.However, in a more recent interview with Prog Archives.com, he made note that he has since become more relaxed towards the word considering it has "become a much broader term". He also admitted he finds unpleasant the press comparing Porcupine Tree with neo prog bands or citing them as 'the New Pink Floyd'. "For me that is so insulting", commented Wilson in an interview with The Dutch Progressive Rock Page, "because it insinuates that you are living in the shadow of some other band. I particularly never wanted to be the new anybody, I just wanted to be the old Porcupine Tree, or the new Porcupine Tree."

Band members

*Steven Wilson – vocals, guitar, piano (1987-)
*Richard Barbieri – keyboard, synthesizer (1993-)
*Colin Edwin – bass (1993-)
*Gavin Harrison − drums (2002-)

Former members

*Chris Maitland − drums, backing vocals (1993-2002)

Live musicians

*John Wesley − guitar, backing vocals (2002-)

Guest musicians

*Theo Travis − flute, saxophone (1995, 1999)
*Stuart Gordon − violin (2000)
*Nick Parry − cello (2000)
*Aviv Geffen – vocals (2002)
*Mikael Åkerfeldt − guitar, backing vocals (2005)
*Adrian Belew − guitar (2005)
*Alex Lifeson − guitar (2007)
*Robert Fripp − guitar, soundscapes (2007)
*Ben Coleman − violin (2007)

Discography

*"On the Sunday of Life" (July 1991)
*"Up the Downstair" (May 1993)
*"The Sky Moves Sideways" (February 1995)
*"Signify" (September 1996)
*"Stupid Dream" (March 1999)
*"Lightbulb Sun" (May 2000)
*"In Absentia" (September 2002)
*"Deadwing" (March 2005)
*"Fear of a Blank Planet" (April 2007)

References

ee also

*Lasse Hoile

External links

* [http://www.porcupinetree.com Porcupine Tree Official Website]
* [http://www.carbon-nation.co.uk Porcupine Tree Magazine]
* [http://www.last.fm/music/Porcupine+Tree Porcupine Tree at last.fm]
* [http://www.myspace.com/porcupinetree Porcupine Tree at MySpace]
*dmoz|Arts/Music/Styles/R/Rock/Progressive/Bands_and_Artists/P/Porcupine_Tree/|Porcupine Tree
* [http://www.theseaweedfarm.com/ The Seaweed Farm] - Porcupine Tree / Steven Wilson related news