Porcupine Tree are an English progressive rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became an influence for new artists. 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".
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 Origins (1987–1990) 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 backstory that described 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, performed, and recorded by Wilson himself.
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. 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".
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. Despite disliking some material on the cassette, he gave an overall 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 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.
The Delerium years (1991–1997)
On the Sunday of Life... Along with the A Psychedelic Psauna compilation, which featured the Porcupine Tree track "Linton Samuel Dawson", the newly formed Delerium label, formed by Freakbeat editors Richard Allen and Ivor Trueman, offered to reissue the cassettes Tarquin's Seaweed Farm and The Nostalgia Factory. Two hundred copies of each cassette were sold through Freakbeat's mail order, The Freak Emporium, and soon Porcupine Tree became known as a mysterious new act amongst the then UK underground psychedelic music scene.
Shortly thereafter, Delerium invited Wilson to sign as one of the label's founder artists. The first release after this, a double vinyl album and single CD compiling the best material from his two cassettes, was released in mid-1992 as On the Sunday of Life, a title chosen from a long list of possible nonsense titles compiled by Richard Allen. The rest of the music from the initial tapes was released on the limited edition compilation album Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape.
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 very well, particularly in Italy, and it was briefly repressed on vinyl and has remained in print on CD ever since its release. The album featured future concert favourite and frequent encore song "Radioactive Toy". By 2000, On the Sunday of Life... had accumulated sales of more than 20,000 copies. On the Sunday of Life was originally meant to be a quadruple (LP)/double (CD) album compiling both cassettes in full, but changed to the best (according to Wilson) songs from the tapes. In 2004, Wilson remixed and remastered all three tapes, releasing them as a three-CD box set called Footprints: Cassette Music 1988-1992. This box was only distributed to family and friends.
Up the Downstair In the midst of Porcupine Tree's rising success, Wilson's other band, No-Man, had been getting excellent UK press, which led to the band being signed to leading UK independent music publisher, Hit & Run Music Publishing, in 1991, which resulted in recording agreements with One Little Indian Records, and Epic 440/Sony in the US. No-Man's success gave Wilson the opportunity to leave his regular job and devote his time solely to music. All of the Delirium releases were published by Hit & Run, whose executive Dave Massey had signed No-Man and continued to be closely involved in the Porcupine Tree project.
In May 1993, the second Porcupine Tree album, Up the Downstair, was released, another prospective double album that was finally slimmed down to a single record. "Voyage 34" was actually going to take up the second disc, but it was last decided to be released alone as a single. The album was highly praised, Melody Maker describing it as "a psychedelic masterpiece... one of the albums of the year." The album continued the fusion of electronic music and rock and also featured guest appearances from two future Porcupine Tree members, Richard Barbieri, of 1970s-80s art rock band Japan, and Colin Edwin.
In November 1993, Voyage 34 was reissued alongside an additional 12-inch remix by Astralasia. The album managed to enter the NME indie chart for six weeks and became an underground chill-out classic, even without radio play.
The Sky Moves Sideways The profile of Porcupine Tree had now grown to the extent that Wilson wanted to expand into live performances. Thus, in December 1993, Porcupine Tree became a live unit featuring Wilson on lead vocals/guitar, Colin Edwin on bass, Chris Maitland on drums, and Richard Barbieri on keyboards.
All three new members of the group had worked with Wilson on various projects over the preceding years, especially Barbieri and Maitland, who had been part of No-Man's touring band. The new line-up's first live album, Spiral Circus, contained recordings from their first three performances, including a BBC Radio One session for Mark Radcliffe, an early champion of the group.
Porcupine Tree's next album did not emerge until early 1995, but was preceded by the Moonloop EP, the last two tracks of which were recorded during the album sessions and were the first to feature the new band. Released in 1995, the band's third studio album, The Sky Moves Sideways became a success among progressive rock fans and Porcupine Tree were hailed as the Pink Floyd of the 1990s. Wilson later lamented 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".
The Sky Moves Sideways was an "expansive soundscape of melody and ambient rock experimentation", but proved 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 Wilson had 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 was the first Porcupine Tree music 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 concerts throughout the year at major music venues in the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, and Greece.
Signify 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. Wilson admitted he was always "in love with the idea of the rock band" because "bands have a kind of glamour, and appeal, and a romance about them the solo projects just don't have." The band worked sporadically over the next year on developing a tighter and more ambitious rock sound.
After the release of the first real Porcupine Tree single, "Waiting", which entered all UK indie charts and the UK National chart and attracting airplay all over Europe, Signify was released in September 1996. The album was a mixture of instrumental tracks and more song-oriented tunes, blending numerous rock and avant-garde styles, such as krautrock. Wilson expressed satisfaction in the direction of the album, stating "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 1990s form of music, but which still has its root in progressive music." The musicians received writing credits for some tracks, most notably for "Intermediate Jesus", which evolved from a jam session later released as Metanoia at the end of 1998. A large amount of major European media interest accompanied the album's release.