Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree are an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned critical acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became an influence for new artists.[8] The group carved out a career at a certain distance away from mainstream music, being described by publications such as Classic Rock and PopMatters as "the most important band you'd never heard of".[9][10][11]
Porcupine Tree
Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England
- 1987–2010[7]
- 2010–2021 (intermittently)
- 2021–present
- Delerium
- Snapper
- Lava
- Transmission
- Roadrunner
- Atlantic
- WHD
- Headspin
- Peaceville
- Kscope
- Music For Nations
The band began as a solo project for Wilson, who initially created all of the band's music himself. By late 1993, however, he wanted to work in a band environment, bringing on frequent collaborators Richard Barbieri as keyboardist, Colin Edwin as bassist, and Chris Maitland as drummer to form the first permanent lineup. With Wilson as lead vocalist and guitarist, this remained the lineup until February 2002, when Maitland left the band and Gavin Harrison was recruited to replace him. Porcupine Tree's early sound evoked various styles of psychedelic rock, space rock and experimental rock, later moving towards a more progressive/space rock direction comparable to that of Pink Floyd. Upon signing with Kscope record label in the late 1990s, the band began to approach a more mainstream alternative rock sound. By the early 2000s, the band had signed to a major record label and shifted their sound again, this time in a more progressive metal direction.
In 2010, after the tour in support of their 2009 studio album The Incident, the band became publicly inactive as Wilson committed himself to his solo work and other members began working on their own separate projects. However, Wilson, Barbieri and Harrison continued to intermittently work on material in secrecy over the course of the following decade, leading to the release of their album Closure/Continuation on 24 June 2022.
History[edit]
Origins (1987–1990)[edit]
Porcupine Tree originated in 1987 as a collaborative hoax project by Steven Wilson and Malcolm Stocks. Partially inspired by the psychedelic/progressive bands of the 1970s, such as Pink Floyd, that had dominated the music scene during their youth, the two decided to form a fictional legendary rock band named The Porcupine Tree. The two fabricated a detailed back-story including information on alleged band members and album titles, as well as a "colourful" history which purportedly included events such as a meeting at a 1970s rock festival and several trips in and out of prison. As soon as he had put aside enough money to buy his own studio equipment, Wilson obliged this creation with several hours of music to provide "evidence" of its existence. Although Stocks provided a few passages of treated vocals and experimental guitar playing, his role in the project was mostly offering occasional ideas, with the bulk of the material being written, recorded, played, and sung by Wilson.
At this point, Porcupine Tree was little more than a joke and a private amusement, as Wilson was concentrating on his other project, No-Man, an endeavour with UK based singer and songwriter Tim Bowness. However, by 1989, he began to consider some of the Porcupine Tree music as potentially marketable. Wilson created an 80-minute-long cassette titled Tarquin's Seaweed Farm under the name of Porcupine Tree.[12] Still showing the spirit of his joke, Wilson included an eight-page inlay which further revealed the hoaxed Porcupine Tree backstory, including references to fictitious band members such as Sir Tarquin Underspoon and Timothy Tadpole-Jones.[13]
Wilson sent out copies of Tarquin's Seaweed Farm to several people he felt would be interested in the recordings. Nick Saloman, the cult UK guitarist better known as The Bevis Frond, had suggested that he send one to Richard Allen, a writer for the UK counter-cultural magazine Encyclopaedia Psychedelica and co-editor of the UK psychedelic garage rock magazine Freakbeat. Allen reviewed the tape in both magazines. Whilst he disliked some of the material, he gave much of it a positive review. Several months later, Allen invited Wilson to contribute a track to the double LP A Psychedelic Psauna that was being put together to launch the new Delerium label. Allen would also become the band's manager, press agent, and promoter until 2004, his role in marketing the band's image decreasing after The Sky Moves Sideways album. In the meantime, Wilson had continued to work on new material. In 1990, he released the Love, Death & Mussolini EP, issued in a very limited run of 10 copies. The EP remains an extremely rare, collectible piece. It was composed of nine at-the-time-unreleased tracks, as a preview for the upcoming second album. In 1991, Wilson released a second full-length Porcupine Tree cassette called The Nostalgia Factory, which further expanded Porcupine Tree's underground fanbase, although at this point, the band was still carrying on the charade of being 1970s rock legends. By this point, Porcupine Tree was entirely a solo project, with Stocks having amicably moved on to other activities.
Musical style[edit]
Influences[edit]
Some of the inherent musical background of Porcupine Tree goes back to Wilson's childhood, when his parents gave Christmas presents to each other. His father received Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon whilst his mother got Donna Summer's Love to Love You Baby, both of which Wilson listened to heavily. These albums influenced his further songwriting.[81] Other influences include The Beatles,[82][83] Camel[84] and Karlheinz Stockhausen.[85]
Later in his teens, Wilson briefly became a fan of the new wave of British heavy metal, but as soon as he discovered 1970s music and progressive rock, his interest in metal diminished in favour of experimental music. He later (in the 2000s) discovered bands in the likes of Gojira, Sunn O))), 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...", said Wilson, "and I found them, they were working in extreme metal." Shortly thereafter, he went on to produce three consecutive albums by Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth, which had a considerable influence in his further songwriting.[86]
The influence of electronic music and krautrock is present, with Wilson namechecking bands such as Can, Neu!, Tangerine Dream,[87] Squarepusher, and Aphex Twin[21] and artists such as Klaus Schulze and Conrad Schnitzler, among others.[16][87] He has mentioned on multiple occasions that he admires the work of American musician Trent Reznor, the founding member of Nine Inch Nails.[15][88][89] Wilson has also cited English electronic band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), along with other potentially "surprising" influences such as ABBA, The Carpenters, Electric Light Orchestra, and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album (1977), largely written and performed by the Bee Gees.[90]
Legacy[edit]
Porcupine Tree have influenced a new generation of artists and bands.[97]
Anders Nyström of the Swedish group Katatonia has cited the work of Porcupine Tree as a large influence for the band in their post-death metal eras.[98] Luc Lemay, leader of the technical death metal band Gorguts, said that The Incident was "a big revelation" for him, inspiring his more recent songwriting.[99] He singled out the concert of its tour as one of the two most important he has attended.[100] Electronic producer Seven Lions also cited them as an inspiration for his dubstep and drum and bass compositions.[101][102]
In addition to those artists who state that Porcupine Tree has been a direct influence on their own careers, other artists have been quoted expressing admiration for their work including Neil Peart,[103] Alex Lifeson,[104] Adrian Belew,[105] Jordan Rudess,[106] Mike Portnoy,[107] Arjen Lucassen,[108] Rob Swire,[109] Haken[110] and many others.
Studio albums