Porcupine Tree - The Psychedelic Era (mega post)

Some of you may know this but I'll say it anyway, when Steven Wilson originally formed the Porcupine Tree it was never meant to be taken seriously. Wilson and friend Malcom Stocks created the band as a hoax to pay homage to all the 70's psychedelic and krautrock bands they grew up listening to. When they formed the group they wrote crazy back stories about how the band met and random stereotypical events involving big festival concerts.

Now with this joke band they had Steven decided it would be a good idea to write some music to go along with the whole fake back story. As Wilson was writing what he had intended as a joke, he realized that some of the music was actually pretty good. So then came Porcupine Trees first 80 min cassette called Tarquin's Seaweed Farm



1 Music for the Head (Here) 2:44
2 Jupiter Island 6:09
3 Nun's Cleavage (Left) 2:45
4 Clarinet Vignette 1:18
5 Nun's Cleavage (Right) 1:09
6 Space Transmission 2:56
7 Message From a Self-Destructing Turnip 0:28
8 Radioactive Toy 5:49
9 Towel 3:33
10 Wastecoat 1:10
11 Mute (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) 8:06
12 Music for the Head (There) 1:24
13 No Reason to Live, No Reason to Die 11:09
14 Daughters in Excess 6:46
15 Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape 20:39

Tarquin's Seaweed Farm (1989) - Part 1
Tarquin's Seaweed Farm (1989) - Part 2

Steven Wilson sent out the cassette tape to people he thought might like and it ended up spreading around the UK underground. Realizing he might have something with this joke he called Porcupine Tree he decided to write more music of the same throwback 70s experimental style. Two more cassettes were released in 1990 one being The Love, Death & Mussolini EP and the other being The Nostalgia Factory both of which were similar in style to Tarquin's Seaweed Farm. These demos caught the attention of Freakbeat magazine editor Richard Allen who had a record label called Delirium Records (a lot of good bands on Delirium btw check it out). Allen agreed to re-release the Porcupine Tree demos on album initially planning to release a double album of everything but later deciding to release what he considered to be the best of. This best of early Porcupine Tree came to be known as On The Sunday Of Life



1 Music for the Head 2:42
2 Jupiter Island 6:12
3 Third Eye Surfer 2:47
4 On the Sunday of Life... 2:11
5 The Nostalgia Factory 7:27
6 Space Transmission 2:59
7 Message From a Self Destructing Turnip 0:27
8 Radioactive Toy 10:00
9 Nine Cats 3:56
10 Hymn 1:14
11 Footprints 5:51
12 Linton Samuel Dawson 3:04
13 And the Swallows Dance Above the Sun 4:03
14 Queen Quotes Crowley 3:56
15 No Luck With Rabbits 0:46
16 Begonia Seduction Scene 2:20
17 This Long Silence 5:00
18 It Will Rain for a Million Years 10:49

On The Sunday Of Life (1991) - Part 1
On The Sunday Of Life (1991) - Part 2

After On The Sunday Of Life Steven Wilson went on to write more original music for his psychedelic rock band Porcupine Tree on Delirium Records. Porcupine Tree was more and more becoming a serious endeavor but at the same time still was paying homage to the 70s experimental sounds of bands like Pink Floyd and Can. The next release to come from them titled Up The Downstairs was probably the first Porcupine Tree release Steven Wilson meant for people to take seriously. This cd is really trippy and remains one of my favorite Porcupine Tree releases. The copy I have is the original not the remix version with Gavin Harrison so sorry to those that like real drums but to me this version is better.



1 What You Are Listening To... 1:00
2 Synesthesia 5:13
3 Monuments Burn Into Moments 0:22
4 Always Never 7:00
5 Up the Downstair 10:05
6 Not Beautiful Anymore 3:28
7 Siren 0:55
8 Small Fish 2:45
9 Burning Sky 11:09
10 Fadeaway 6:19

Up The Downstairs (1993)

Before Steven Wilson wrote Up The Downstairs he wrote a 30 minute single called Voyage 34 about an LSD trip. Wilson had initially intended to release Voyage 34 as a double album with Up The Downstairs but later rejected this idea and released the original Voyage 34 as a single in 1992. Then in 1993 Porcupine Tree released Voyage 34: Remixes which contained phase 3 and 4 of the voyage that began on the original single. Then in 2000 Porcupine Tree released a compilation of all 4 phases of Voyage 34 in an album titled Voyage 34: The Complete Trip.



1 Phase I 12:56
2 Phase II 17:26
3 Phase III 19:26
4 Phase IV 13:42

Voyage 34: The Complete Trip (2000) - Part 1
Voyage 34: The Complete Trip (2000) - Part 2

The next thing Porcupine Tree would release Moonloop contained the song "Stars Die" which would be the first Porcupine Tree song to get rock radio play time. The rest is history.

PLEASE BUY THESE ALBUMS IF YOU LIKE THEM! Also be sure to see Porcupine Tree live they put on a really good show.

I've noticed a bunch of my friends cant figure out 2 part rars. For the technologically disabled you need to download both parts in order to extract the files. Don't only download the first part expecting to get the first half of the cd...