The creator has a mastertape (Porcupine Tree) (LP 3528 - 3537)

Porcupine Tree Lightbulb Sun (CD, K Scope Records, 2000) ****  

Porcupine Tree Recordings (CD, Snapper Records, 2001) ****

Porcupine Tree In Absentia (CD, Lava Records, 2002) *****  

Porcupine Tree Deadwing (CD, Lava Records, 2005) ****   

Porcupine Tree Fear of a Blank Planet (CD, Roadrunner Records, 2007) ****  

Porcupine Tree Nil Recurring (CD, Transmission Records, 2007) ****  

Porcupine Tree Anesthetize (CD/DVD, K Scope Records, 2013) ****  

Porcupine Tree The Incident (CD, Roadrunner Records, 2009) ****  

Porcupine Tree Octane Twisted (CD, K Scope Records, 2012) ****  

Porcupine Tree Closure/ Continuation (CD, Music for Nations Records, 2022) ****  

Genre: Prog rock

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi, HMV, Fopp

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Buying New Soul (Recordings)

Gear costume: Lazarus (Deadwing)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: The 2000's started with Lightbulb Sun and a continuation of Stupid Dream's poppier approach. I can really hear the Beatles influence on many of Lightbulb Sun's songs. There are hints of backwards guitar style innovations throughout this album. Superior pop, but it's still unmistakably Porcupine Tree.

Recordings is a collection of tracks that didn't make the Stupid Dream/ Lightbulb Sun albums and it's freakishly good. Begun by the wonderful Buying New Soul, the collection includes some B-sides and other previously unreleased gems. 

I love these kinds of compilations because often the band experiments wonderfully on those kinds of items. Recordings is no different. This is one of my most played PT albums. 

Next up is In Absentia - still my favourite Porcupine Tree album. Gavin Harrison replaces Chris Maitland on drums and is a great fit for these muscular songs and Prog Metal moves that the band now bring to the party on In Absentia.

The quiet/ loud dynamic works brilliantly on the opener Blackest Eyes and onward; the harmonies are terrific and the singing by Steven Wilson has never been better than on this album. Elsewhere there are great pop songs (The Sound of Muzak); prog metal blasts of riff rock (Wedding Nails) and Radiohead style rock experimentation. 

The variety and brilliant execution makes it a terrific package - AllMusic summed the album up well: 'Sonically gorgeous and deceivingly complex, In Absentia has the most immediate appeal of anything Wilson has released under this moniker up to this point'.

Commercially, it did the business as well - In Absentia sold three times as many copies as any of their earlier albums.  

How to follow that peak? Deadwing continued the successful sound of In Absentia, and was even more commercially successful! 

The album has its origins in a screenplay for a ghost story written by Steven Wilson and Mike Bennion. Many of the songs were originally intended for the film soundtrack, but when the project failed to get off the ground, they were instead recorded for the next Porcupine Tree album.

The songs stand alone, and it all adds up to another embarrassment of riches album - plenty of experimentation, plenty of riffs and plenty of catchy choruses - all recognisably Porcupine Tree. Not quite as inspired as In Absentia, but still - a consistently excellent album.

Fear of a Blank Planet, their ninth studio effort, is a mellower album in comparison to In Absentia and Deadwing. Steven Wilson's singing is quieter and more restrained throughout which suits the thoughtful and worthy subject matter - the fear of losing the current generation of youth to various common threats to their mental and social wellbeing, including broken homes, excessive screen time, and narcotic overuse (prescribed and otherwise) to the point of mental and spiritual blankness. 

As with most concept albums, I tend to lose the plot along the way and just enjoy the music. Commercially it was their highest selling album to this point. It was also a hit with the critics.

Nil Recurring is a lengthy E.P. - almost half an hour; some albums are that long. It's comprised of four songs recorded during the Fear of a Blank Planet sessions. The title track features Robert Fripp on guitar. It's a standout track in their catalogue.

The Anesthetize package is of high quality, as per usual. Attention to detail in the presentation of PT and SW albums is exhaustive.

This time, the live in the Netherlands document comes as two CDs and a DVD. The band were touring Fear of a Blank Planet so material from that album and Nil Recurring is featured heavily.

The multi-layered PT sound from the studio means they need some help in a live setting. During this concert guitarist/ vocalist John Wesley helps flesh out the sound and does a great job. It's fun watching him and the rest of PT do their thing. Steven Wilson is the most animated, and so my eye naturally goes to him in centre-stage.

The Incident is their next studio album and again it topped the other albums commercially (this one is the peak of their popularity so far).

The concept this time centres around trying to humanise news media reports of traumatic events such as a car crash. This means that the title song goes for 55 minutes and exists in 14 parts. Disc 2 has four songs not attached to the concept that add another 20 minutes. So, in old money this would have been called a double album.

Whatever, it rocks and rolls and unfolds a fascinating series of songs joined together into a suite that rewards repeat listens. It would be the last studio album for quite a while, and Colin Edwin's final studio album as the bassist.

Octane Twisted is a live album documenting the tour supporting The Incident. The whole album is performed during the concert in Chicago, 2010. with the remainder being songs from the band's catalogue. Its highlights include an extended Hatesong, a 15-minute medley of Russia on Ice/"The Pills I'm Taking and Arriving Somewhere But Not Here. The package again includes a DVD of the performance. 

That would be it for Porcupine Tree until a surprise resurfacing in 2022 with Closure/ Continuation (SW hedging his bets). The record emerged from earlier writing sessions between Wilson and Gavin Harrison begun shortly after The Incident. Eventually they evolved into the final forms on Closure/ Continuation with assistance from Richard Barbieri.

Where do they all belong? Steven Wilson's solo albums are yet to come. 

Music for the head (Porcupine Tree) (LP 3517 - 3526)

Porcupine Tree  On the Sunday of Life... (CD, K Scope Records, 1993) ***  

Porcupine Tree  Voyage 34 (CD, K Scope Records, 1992/1993) ***  

Porcupine Tree  Up the Downstair (CD, K Scope Records, 1993/2005) ****

Porcupine Tree  Staircase Infinities (CD, K Scope Records, 1993/2005) ****

Porcupine Tree  The Sky Moves Sideways (CD, Snapper Records, 1995/2004) ****    

Porcupine Tree  Signify (CD, Snapper Records, 1996/2007) ****  

Porcupine Tree  Insignificance (CD, Snapper Records, 1997/2007) ****  

Porcupine Tree  Coma Divine (CD, K Scope Records, 1997/2007) ****  

Porcupine Tree  Coma: Coda (Vinyl, Porcupine Tree Ltd Records, 1997/2021) ****  

Porcupine Tree  Stupid Dream (CD, K Scope Records, 1999/2006) ****  

Genre: Psychedelic rock, prog rock

Places I remember: HMV, Fopp

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Signify 

Gear costume: Up The Downstair

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: It's a bumper crop of albums from Porcupine Tree (PT). I'll divide them into a couple of piles. First up - the nineties albums. 

Deep breath and a cuppa tea needed first - there are quite a few PT albums as Steven Wilson is a creative guy. Not only was he active with PT in the nineties, he also had albums out with or without collaborators in the No-Man, I.E.P, and Bass Communion projects. Blackfield and other collaborations were to come in the 2000s.

Fittingly, Porcupine Tree began life in Steven Wilson's boyhood bedroom. As he points out - On the Sunday of Life isn't really the first PT album - more a compilation of his early songwriting that he put on cassettes.

It has become a fascinating document though, as it definitely has elements of his later work scattered amongst the blind alleys, and in Radioactive Toy he has his first substantial leap forward.

Same goes with Voyage 34 - a genre exercise that Steven Wilson put out originally as a single/ an EP/ then an album with its complete four parts. As he says - it stands alone in the catalogue as an early experiment. I like its concept - delving into the world of a Timothy Leary acid freak; exploring a moment in time.

All up - these two releases show what a prodigious talent Steven Wilson possessed back in his teenage bedroom.

So, I guess Up the Downstair could be seen as his first real Porcupine Tree album. It was certainly the first PT album for me back in the early 2000s (after hearing the band on a music magazine sampler). Porcupine Tree wasn't a band quite yet.

Although Steven Wilson still does it all, this album sees the introduction of a few other musicians on some tracks: Colin Edwin (bass on Always Never); Richard Barbieri (electronics on the title track); and Gavin Harrison (drums).  

The original album has been subsequently tinkered with - the electronic drums were even eventually removed and replaced with Gavin Harrison's 'real' drums. My CD copy is the 2005 expanded version with Harrison on board and the Staircase Infinities EP added.

The EP begins strongly with Cloud Zero and the Up The Downstair quality carries over to the E.P. This is a great package! It certainly sold me on the work of Steven Wilson.

He clearly has a soft spot for Pink Floyd post Syd and pre the Roger Waters split. The Sky Moves Sideways has quite a few echoes (sorry) of that Pink Floyd era, and I have zero problem with that! The Sky Moves Sideways Part 1 and Part 2 bookend the album (as Shine on You Crazy Diamond does on Wish You Were Here).

Barbieri, Edwin and Harrison turn up again on a few tracks, as does Chris Maitland on drums. It's still the Steven Wilson show though.

There are various versions of this album - mine is the 2004 extended remaster from 2004.

The reissue caper is hard to keep track of with Porcupine Tree. Signify was the PT's fourth album and my 2007 reissue has it twinned with an album's worth of demos originally released a year later called Insignificance - material that didn't make it to Signify or was reworked or B-sides. As I said, the man is prolific in his output!!

Previous to this the Porcupine Tree albums were basically solo projects, but Signify is the first with Porcupine Tree existing as a band. 'Existing' being the operative word because as Steven Wilson has said: "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... 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."

Generally, Signify is a progressive step forward and the continued input from Barbieri, Edwin and Maitland does help provide a strong instrumental base for Mr. Wilson. The riffarama of Signify is a highlight.

Coma Divine was recorded live in Rome and showcases the Signify album. The album is from their third night in Rome, while Coma: Coda features their second night and includes a lot of material not done on night 3. Following along? It gets complicated, doesn't it. Doing these posts helps me sort things out in my brain, and also puts things in order in my collection.

The double CD and double vinyl sets combine to produce an excellent snapshot of the band live in the late-nineties (Coma Divine has some overdubs, but Coma: Coda has none).

Final album in this list is their next studio album after Signify - Stupid Dream released in 1999 (my copy is the 2006 reissue with a separate disc containing high-res versions). 

Stupid Dream sees PT ending the decade on a high. The album contains some of their heaviest music to date, while also balancing that with some gentle acoustic music. It's another brilliant record - the quality control was set to brilliant during the nineties.

Where do they all belong? On to the 2000's and the productivity remains vast. Where does he get the energy from? His book - Limited Edition of One provides some answers and is warmly recommended!

Lifting the lid (Hogarth + Barbieri) (LP 2765 - 2766)

Steve Hogarth + Richard Barbieri  Not the Weapon but the Hand (CD, KScope Records, 2012) ***  

Steve Hogarth + Richard Barbieri  Arc Light (CD, KScope Records, 2013) ***

Genre: Prog rock

Places I remember: Fopp (London)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: A Cat With Seven Souls

Gear costume: Oil

Active compensatory factors: Steve Hogarth is the lead singer in the prog rock band Marillion, while Richard Barbieri was the keyboard player in Japan, and more recently - Porcupine Tree.

Together they produce some unique music outside of those other bands. It's a perfect combo in many ways - Hogarth sings and provides lyrics while Barbieri provides the music. So they work with each other's strengths.

It's a textured series of soundscapes on Not The Weapon but the Hand and Arc Light (the first and second of three albums with Barbieri) which float by without leaving a lasting impression. Perfect late-night music!

Where do they all belong? A nice sidebar to their day jobs.

Permanating (Steven Wilson) (LP 331)

Steven Wilson Home Invasion (CD/DVD, 2019) ****

Genre:  Prog rock

Places I remember: HMV Oxford St., London. The day before it closed down forever I decided to finally buy this package.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Permanating (really you need to see the actual DVD for the Indian stylised dance troupe that Wilson shares the stage with). As he says - he wrote a great pop song!




Gear costume:  Lazarus

Active compensatory factors: As I was watching the DVD of this concert (after listening to the CD a few times in the Purdmobile pootling to and from school), I realised something: if push came to shove - I could listen to Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson albums exclusively, and be a happy man.

Yes, I'd miss many things but really, when the man is firing (and he's seldom, if ever, 'off') he is amazing and the listening pleasure to be derived from such activities, is immense.

The range on this concert is breath-taking from full on prog wig outs - Vermillioncore, to tender ballads - Lazarus, to pop confection - Permanating.

The band is as tight as a fish's bum - all locked in and delivering some extraordinary sounds.

Where do they all belong? I own all of Wilson's Porcupine Tree and solo albums and trust me when I say: this one is special!

I haul you in a sea of silence (Rain Tree Crow)

Moods.  Music and mood sometimes match perfectly in a synergistic way.

Today is Saturday (I know it says Friday in the post title bar - I have no idea why it does, but trust me - it's Saturday). A beautiful sunny day. Jacky and I have just returned from a long walk into the shops at Oneroa to get an engagement card for Samantha and Jesse. We are now back home, Jacky's having a nap and I have Rain Tree Crow (by Rain Tree Crow) playing on the p-pod dock.

It's a perfect match - languid, spacious, thoughtful, atmospheric, ambient music for a languid, sunny afternoon on Waiheke Island. 

Rain Tree Crow (released 1991) is really Japan's last album before David Sylvian closed up shop and went solo, so it's got elements of Japan style pop but leans towards a proggy ambient sound scape. Actually, I couldn't help thinking about Porcupine Tree while I listened to it. Richard Barbieri is common to both endeavours after all and Steven Wilson's vocals could easily be substituted for Sylvian's.

Blackwater was the album's only single.