Porcupine Tree

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Porcupine Tree is a British progressive rock band formed in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. It is the most successful project by musician Steven Wilson, as evidenced by its growing popularity. A mix of early progressive rock, psychedelia, ambient and, more recently, metal is present in their recordings. This shouldn't come as that much of a surprise given that self-taught audio engineer and producer Wilson listens to many different genres of music for inspiration. Wilson once commented: "I like so many different types of things, and they all go into the melting pot, if you like, that produces the music of Porcupine Tree."

Contents

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Line up

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History

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Roots

In 1987, Porcupine Tree began as a solo project for Steven Wilson, and in some ways, it was born out of a joke.

Wilson: "It was something that I started doing as soon as I had the money to buy my own studio equipment. When you've got a studio in your house you tend to do things you wouldn't do when you're paying to go into a professional studio, where you're watching the clock all the time. The one thing I wanted to do, because I had a great love of late 60's/early 70's psychedelic and progressive music, was to make my own slant on that."

"When I decided to let other people hear the music, the first thing I did was to put together a cassette just to send out to a few people, and also to sell through a few companies who would put you on their mailing list. At the time I was paranoid that if I was honest about the source of the music, people would think that it was just another guy in his bedroom messing about. So to go with the first cassette I created a booklet, which related a bogus history of an imaginary band to try and give the tape a bit more weight so as to make people take it a bit more seriously. It was very tongue in cheek! It was suggested that the band met in the early 70's at a rock festival, they'd been in and out of prison and they'd been busted on various occasions! It was a bit of fun. But of course like anything that starts as a joke, people started to take it all seriously!"

By early 1989, Steven rated some of his Porcupine Tree recordings highly enough to compile a cassette running for 80 minutes, entitled Tarquin's Seaweed Farm, which came with an 8-page inlay, containing information about obscure band members like Sir Tarquin Underspoon and Timothy Tadpole-Jones, not to mention crew members like Linton Samuel Dawson (note the initials).

Wilson then sent out copies of the cassette to people that he felt might be interested. One of them went to the underground UK magazine Freakbeat, run by Richard Allen and Ivor Trueman. Unknown to Steven at the time, they were in the process of setting up their own record company. Despite the fact that they gave the tape a rather lukewarm review in the magazine, they invited Porcupine Tree to contribute a track to their first release, a compilation album of the best underground psychedelic groups. This was ultimately to take another 18 months or so to come to fruition.

In 1990, Wilson was able to make music his full-time career, as No-Man (his long-term project with Tim Bowness) had recently been signed to One Little Indian Records and Hit & Run publishing in the UK, and Epic 440/Sony in the US. The band, whose ethereal sound was very different from Porcupine Tree's also received excellent UK press and several Melody Maker and Sounds Singles Of The Week.

Free from the constraints of his day job, Steven actively began to distribute Porcupine Tree's music in the form of Tarquin's Seaweed Farm and its follow up, The Nostalgia Factory, accompanied by the booklets containing the imaginary band history and other misleading information. These tapes built up an underground interest in the name which was added to by the eventual release of the newly named Delerium record label's first compilation album A Psychedelic Psauna which featured the Porcupine Tree track "Linton Samuel Dawson". Delerium also reissued the first two Porcupine Tree tapes.

Shortly afterwards, Steven was invited by the new label to be one of the first artists to sign to the Delerium label. The original invitation was to reissue both the tapes as double albums, but Steven decided instead to compile the best material onto one double album which became On the Sunday of Life..., the third release on the new label (most of the remainder of the music from the original eventually emerged on another limited edition album entitled Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape).

On the Sunday of Life... was issued in early 1992 in a small run of 1000 copies in a deluxe gatefold sleeve. Such was the interest from the press and public that this small run sold out almost immediately and was repressed along with a CD version. Among other tracks the album contained a future Porcupine Tree classic and frequent concert encore in "Radioactive Toy". By 2000, On the Sunday of Life... had racked up sales of over 20,000 copies.

For his next album, Wilson felt that in order to take the project forward it was important to develop the sound into new and more contemporary areas. The first fruits of these new sessions was a 30 minute single called Voyage 34 and released in 1992, that fused the ambient trance of acts like The Orb and Future Sound of London, with liquid rock guitar soloing, strung together with a narrative taken from sixties LSD propaganda LPs. It was a major underground hit, reaching the UK independent Top 20 and a perfect representation of how the dissolution of boundaries between genres characterised the best music of the nineties.

"Voyage 34" was actually a track recorded for another prospective Porcupine Tree double album Up the Downstair. However, when the album eventually emerged in mid-1993 the decision not to include the single had slimmed down the album to a single record. Up the Downstair was greeted with rapture, Melody Maker describing it as "a psychedelic masterpiece... one of the albums of the year." The album continued the fusion of dance and rock and also featured guest appearances from two future full-time Porcupine Tree members, Richard Barbieri (ex-80's art rock band Japan) and Colin Edwin.

In November 1993, Voyage 34 was reissued alongside an additional 12 inch remix by Astralasia. With non-existent radio play it still managed to enter the NME indie chart for six weeks and became an underground chill-out classic.

The profile of Porcupine Tree had now grown to the extent that the question of live performances could no longer be ignored. Thus, in December 1993, Porcupine Tree became a live unit featuring Steven on lead vocals/guitar, Colin Edwin on bass guitar, Chris Maitland on drums, and Richard Barbieri on keyboards.

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 an 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.

New music was already underway. The next album would not emerge until early 1995, but was preceded by the classic single Stars Die/Moonloop, 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 big success among prog fans, and Porcupine Tree was hailed as the Pink Floyd of the nineties, something Wilson would later regret: "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". Regret it or not, the CD did attract a lot of new fans.

The Sky Moves Sideways was as expansive soundscape of melody and ambient rock experimentation, but would prove to be a transitional work with half recorded before the formation of the band and half recorded after. Most of the album was taken up with the 35 minute title track, which at one point Steven intended to be long enough to occupy the whole album (an alternate version of the track, containing some of the excised music, was included on the 2004 remastered version of the album). It also entered the NME, Melody Maker, and Music Week charts. Together with the Moonloop EP, this album became the first Porcupine Tree music to be issued in America in the autumn of 1995, and attracted favourable press on both sides of the Atlantic. The band supported the album with numerous gigs throughout the year at major venues in the UK, The Netherlands, Italy, and Greece.

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Growth (Phase One)

Partly unsatisfied with the half band/half solo nature of The Sky Moves Sideways Porcupine Tree promptly got down to the task of recording the first proper band record and worked sporadically over the next year on developing a tighter and more ambitious rock sound.

Wilson: "Obviously the practical concern of being able to play the music live was the instigating factor. But I think subconsciously I also felt that I'd taken the solo years as far as I'd wanted to because I never really enjoyed working with drum machines. On The Sky Moves Sideways I had a couple of tracks where I did actually bring Chris and Colin in for the first time: 'Stars Die' and 'Moonloop'. And they were a turning point for me because I realized that those two tracks for me were the best from the whole sessions. And I realized from that point on I never wanted to go back to having to use drum machines. But also, I think I've always kind of been in love with the idea of, y'know, 'the rock band'. Because bands have a kind of glamour, and appeal, and a romance about them the solo projects just don't have."

And so Porcupine Tree started working on their next album, Signify, as a band. The musicians even got some writing credits, most notably on the track "Intermediate Jesus", which evolved from a jam session (parts of which would be released on the limited edition double LP Metanoia in the end of 1998).

Wilson: "Signify was slightly odd in the way it was recorded in the sense that although it is a band album, because we were never able to actually all be in the same room at the same time, because of physical limitations, with the exception of one track, "Intermediate Jesus", which was done outside, I tended to demo the tracks to a fairly high level and they would just replace the parts that I'd played on synthesizers with the real thing. So there wasn't a great deal of input from the other guys."

After the release of the first real Porcupine Tree single Waiting, which entered all UK indie charts and the UK National chart attracting airplay all over Europe, Signify finally hit the shops in September 1996. More than ever the album was a mixture of instrumental tracks and more song-oriented tunes, blending together numerous rock and avant-garde styles, while absorbing many diverse influences but relying on none and still providing that wonderful mixture of dreamy melodies and raw power or dark moods.

A large amount of major European media interest accompanied the album's release, as Porcupine Tree had now become a highly respected force in the musical underground. Signify is regarded by the band (and many fans) as one of their finest works.

Wilson: "For me, tracks like 'Every Home Is Wired' and 'Dark Matter' totally transcend both genre and comparison. Finally, I think we are making a completely original and 90's form of music, but which still has its root in progressive music."

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.

Porcupine Tree continued to increase in popularity abroad during 1997 and in March played to an audience of over 5,000 in Rome over three nights - all of which were recorded for the 1997 live album Coma Divine. This album 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 1997 Wilson was asked by ex-Marillion singer Fish if he would be interested cooperating on his new album. Wilson would end up co-writing, playing on and producing Fish' Sunsets on Empire, the best album the Scotsman had released in years. Interestingly enough, two years later Marillion would ask Wilson to mix part of their new album marillion.com. Working with both camps of one of his favourite teenage bands was a dream come true for Wilson.

Also, in late 1997 the band's first three albums were remastered and reissued. Signify also saw a release in the US on Miles Copeland's Ark 21 label.

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Growth (Phase Two)

Steven, Richard, Colin, and Chris spent all of 1998 recording their fifth studio album, a release that reflected the band's move towards a more song orientated sound.

Wilson: "Basically, I wanted to make an album full of good songs. I'm much more interested now than I was in songwriting as an art form, as opposed to soundscape development. When I started making Porcupine Tree albums, it was as much about how the albums flowed and fitted together. It still is to an extent, but it's a tighter sound now, in the sense that the song is paramount. What I was listening to at the time when I was writing this album was a lot more vocally oriented. I would say the major influence on that would be my interest in Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. I was listening a lot to stuff like Pet Sounds and all that kind of harmony singing. Also stuff like Todd Rundgren, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, anything with really good ensemble singing. I was particularly into that stuff when I was writing this album. And I kind of got interested in the idea of the pop song as a kind of experimental symphony if you like."

At the time of recording, the band had no record deal, but later that year they signed to the Snapper/K-Scope label and in March of 1999, the album Stupid Dream was issued, supported by a lengthy tour of the UK, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, France, Poland, and the USA. The three singles taken from the album Piano Lessons, Stranger by the Minute, and Pure Narcotic all achieved mainstream exposure in the US and in Europe and appeared well placed in the UK independent charts and on radio station playlists. Although initially the album was such a departure that some older fans were unsure, it brought the band many new fans and went on to become the band's best selling and most acclaimed release up to that time.

Image:Porcupinetree2000.jpgThe time spent looking for a record deal had not been wasted and only a few months after the release of Stupid Dream the band were ready to begin work on a follow up, recorded during the transition into the new millennium and completed in February 2000. With string arrangements provided by Dave Gregory of XTC, Lightbulb Sun built on the mix of songwriting, soundscaping, and rock dynamics of Stupid Dream, but developed it into something altogether more intense and organic, a band confidently in control of their sound. The album was released in May, 2000, preceded by the single Four Chords That Made a Million, a sold out show at the Scala in London began a short run of UK shows, to be followed later in the year by European festival dates and a major tour supporting Dream Theater.

The band continued to tour through the end of 2000 and the start of 2001, including their first major tour of Germany. A special double CD edition of the Lightbulb Sun album was issued in Israel and Germany, and in May, Recordings a limited edition collection of EP tracks and out-takes from the previous two albums, was released as the band's final release under their Snapper/K-Scope contract. In June 2001 the band played a short US tour, culminating 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.

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Growth (Phase Three)

In February 2002 Porcupine Tree's first ever line-up change occurred when drummer Chris Maitland departed after eight years with the band. The band welcomed extraordinary drummer and long term acquaintance Gavin Harrison to the line-up.

In March, as a major retrospective box set of the band's early work, Stars Die: The Delerium Years 1991-1997 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. Sessions took place in New York and London, with veteran engineer Paul Northfield and string arranger Dave Gregory also playing major roles in the making of the record. Mixing of the new album was completed in L.A. in May with Tim Palmer.

The eagerly awaited new album, In Absentia was released by Lava Records in September 2002 (European release Jan 2003). It was the band's most accomplished and complete work to date, featuring a much heavier sound on some tracks, but also some of the band's most beautiful and fragile works. The album received great praise worldwide and went on to become the band's best selling album shifting over 100,000 copies in it's first year of release, and charting in several European countries. The band also released a 5.1 surround sound version of the album, mixed by legendary Grammy Award winning producer Elliot Scheiner, which went on to win the award for best 5.1 mix at the 2004 Surround Sound Music awards in L.A.

To promote the album the band undertook four tours of Europe and North America, including one with acclaimed Swedish metal band Opeth. On tour the new line up of the band was further augmented by additional touring vocalist/guitarist John Wesley.

During these tours the visual element of the band's performance was taken to new heights with the involvement of filmmaker and photographer Lasse Hoile, who created a dark and surreal visual counterpoint to Porcupine Tree's music. The long promotional campaign for In Absentia ended on November 30th as the band played a homecoming show to a sold out London Astoria.

During 2003, Porcupine Tree also set up their own label and online store. The first release on the Transmission label was a studio session recorded for XM Radio, Washington, followed in 2004 by a recording from Polish radio in 2001. The band plan to use the label to issue a series of well recorded and packaged live and exclusive studio recordings.

2003 also saw the start of a lengthy reissue/remaster campaign, with many of the early albums expanded to double CDs. These reissues included a rerecorded/remixed version of the Up the Downstair album, and the reissue of Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun on Lava/Atlantic.

In early 2004 the band embarked on the recording sessions for an ambitious new Porcupine Tree album, Deadwing, their second for Lava/Atlantic. The album takes its inspiration from a film script (and hopefully later a film) written by Steven with his filmmaker friend Mike Bennion. With the album sessions completed in November 2004, and the band's total worldwide sales now approaching half a million units, demand for new music from the band was at an all time high, and increasing media coverage, word of mouth and fan-power continued to create interest in Porcupine Tree on a massive scale throughout the world.

Image:Porcupinetree2005.jpgDeadwing was released in Europe and the US during the spring of 2005 as both a stereo and 5.1 surround sound album, preceded by the release of 2 singles, Shallow in the US, and Lazarus in Europe. The tour to promote the album commenced in the UK at the end of March, and continued throughout the year.

Porcupine Tree will release Deadwing in Japan on March 22 of 2006, making it the first album by the band to be released in that country. There are also plans to tour Japan later in the year.

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Name

By declining to provide an answer, Steven Wilson has started controversy over questions about the origin of the band's name. A number of theories exist, including the following:

  • There is an American Indian legend about a porcupine who tricks the other animals by planting a tree which grows under him so he can shoot his spines down to kill them.
  • The name might simply refer to cannabis, a plant known for its distinguished "spiky" leaves and mind-altering effects when smoked or ingested.
  • John Wesley offers the explanation that there is a pub in London called the "Porcupine" and there is a tree outside the pub that is known as the "Porcupine Tree", however, even though other band members have been to the pub, Steven Wilson has never been there.
  • More well-known progressive band Genesis had a song called "Back in NYC". One of the lines from that song is "As I cuddled the porcupine, he said I had none to blame but me." Band member Peter Gabriel has explained that "cuddling the porcupine" was meant as a metaphor for masturbation. Given that Porcupine Tree had started out as a kind of joke, there is some speculation that the band's name has a more juvenile origin, i.e., that it is merely a veiled reference to male genitalia.
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Genre

Porcupine Tree are normally categorised as a "progressive rock" band. Almost anyone familiar with the group labels them as such. However, Steven Wilson has been noted in the past to express a certain dislike for this tendency.

Wilson: "Porcupine Tree music is very very simple. There's nothing complex about it at all. The complexity is in the production. The complexity is in the way the albums are constructed. All of the work goes into creating the texture and the sound, and making it sound right. There's nothing complicated about the music at all. And that's really why I have to take issue when people describe us as progressive rock. I don't think we are a progressive rock band. I think we're just a rock band. I think what leads people to give it that kind of progressive tag is the way the songs are produced."

It's currently unknown whether he has changed, or remained in this posture regarding the fact.

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Discography

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Studio albums

On the Sunday of Life...
<center>July, 1991
Up the Downstair
<center>May, 1993
The Sky Moves Sideways
<center>February, 1995
Signify
<center>September, 1996
Stupid Dream
<center>March, 1999
Lightbulb Sun
<center>May, 2000
In Absentia
<center>September, 2002
Deadwing
<center>March, 2005
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Live albums

Coma Divine - Recorded Live in Rome
<center>October, 1997
Warszawa
<center>February, 2004
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Compilations

Voyage 34: The Complete Trip
<center>April, 2000
Recordings
<center>May, 2001
Stars Die: The Delerium Years 1991-1997
<center>March, 2002
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Limited editions

Metanoia
<center>December, 1998
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Singles and EPs

  • Voyage 34 (1992)
  • Staircase Infinities (1994)
  • Moonloop EP (1994)
  • Waiting (1996)
  • Piano Lessons (1999)
  • Stranger by the Minute (1999)
  • Pure Narcotic (1999)
  • Four Chords That Made a Million (2000)
  • Shesmovedon (2000)
  • Lazarus (German release, 2005)
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Limited editions

  • Tarquin's Seaweed Farm (1989)
  • Love, Death & Mussolini (1990)
  • The Nostalgia Factory (1990)
  • Spiral Circus - Live (1993)
  • Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape (1994)
  • Insignificance (1997)
  • Coma Divine II (1999)
  • Stars Die - Rare and Unreleased (1999)
  • Tonefloating : The Use of Ashes vs Steven Wilson (2000)
  • Transmission IV (2001)
  • XM (Live Radio Sessions, 2003)
  • Porcupine Tree Sampler 2005 (Transmission 3.1) (2005)
  • XM II (Transmission 4.1) (Live Radio Sessions, 2005)
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Promotional

  • Radioactive E.P. (1992)
  • Waiting (1996)
  • The Porcupine Tree Delerium EP (2001)
  • Porcupine Tree Sampler (2002)
  • Porcupine Tree Sampler 2002.1 (2002)
  • Porcupine Tree Sampler 2002.2 (2002)
  • Porcupine Tree Sampler 2002.3 (2002)
  • Blackest Eyes (2003)
  • Trains (2003)
  • The Sound of Muzak (2003)
  • Lava Records Pre-Cleared Songs for Film Vol. 1 (2003)
  • Futile (2003)
  • Shallow (2005)
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References

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See also

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External links

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