OFF: Porcupine Tree

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Mon, Dec 10, 2001 at 12:09:11PM -0500, Nick Medford typed out:
> Back on Porcupine Tree- I see there are all sorts of PT obscurities/out-
> takes/limited editions being re-released. I've cooled on PT, so I find it
> hard to get too excited about this, but one that did catch my eye was
> "Staircase Infinities", recorded around the same time as "Up the
> Downstair"- easily their best album IMHO. I'm confident some folks here
> have that one - is it in a similar style to UtD or is it more in the later
> poppy mode?

        _Up The Downstair_ (I didn't see anyone else answer this in full,
as it were) is what used to be an annoyingly rare 5-track EP. It contains
three songs that were excerpted from the planned _Up The Downstair_ double
album which would have included these and `Voyage 34 (remodelled)',
otherwise known as a remix of Phase 1. Then there are two tracks which
were in the running for the album originally but weren't finished in
time. It's a nice little package per se, liner is photos of scribbled
notes by SW on how the album might come together and session sheet. Actual
tracks are, off the top of my head:

Cloud Zero (intro noise taken from `Wastecoat' on YHD, instrumental with
the general feel of `Always Never' but less varied, main riff later to
become the root of `The Sound of No-One Listening')
? (a song with Alan Duffy lyrics, much akin to `Small Fish', nothing
special)
Rainy Taxi (long slow instrumental atmospherics with a few sampled treated
vocals, most like the breakdown in `Burning Sky' with more progression)
Navigator (wandering track with Muslimgauze-like things-banging-on-things
noises for percussion (not as exciting as that sounds), or somewhat like
`Waiting Phase 2')
Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape (as on YHD without the MC vocal, slightly
cleaner)

        My general feeling is that `YHD' is rather good, the rest nothing
special, and the session sheets and notes make clear that there was more
that could have gone on here so it isn't even the completion of UTD, but
even with that rather faint praise I still wouldn't care to part with it.

> Incidentally, why does everyone cite "Stupid Dream" as the album where the
> major shift of style occurred? 'Cos to me, "Signify" is the one where
> everything changed. Yes, these changes become crystallised on the
> subsequent albums, but "Sky Moves Sideways" to "Signify" is more of a
> departure than "Signify" to "Stupid Dream", surely?

        I've thought about this and I don't agree. I think _Signify_ has a
couple of tracks one entirely doesn't recognise from PT-gone-before
(`Signify' itself and `Sever') and `Intermediate Jesus' shows there's a
new kind of thing going on in the creative process, as does `Prayer', but
the rest is all parallelled on UTD. SMS on the other hand was originally
going to be one track, the title, and it's clearly designed to be
reminiscent of Floyd's _Wish You Were Here_; then there's twenty minutes
of edited jam on it too, so all three of the big pieces are
unrepresentative of normal PT for a reason (I think of `SMS' as a prog
take on the musical idea of V34), but the short ones fit right in. I think
therefore that SMS is the weird one of the Delerium albums.

        The reason _Stupid Dream_ is seen as such a shift by the old fans
is that we waited so bloody long for it, or at least I think that's one
factor. But the overall intent is so clearly different, the slick
production, the pop songs; the long prog pieces have precursors in a kind
of dumbed-down `SMS' however, and I think what _Stupid Dream_ was in that
sense was a step back onto the older weird one slanted for the pop
market. I also, as is well recorded, think that didn't work half as well
at doing both as does _Lightbulb Sun_ but I realise not everyone agrees
with me here and I can see why. That's the way I see it
(Barry) anyway. Yours,
                        Jon

ObCD: none, because I'm in a lab and have no headphones, but if I was at
home it would be Spiritual Beggars's _Mantra III_)
--
        Jonathan Jarrett                Birkbeck College, London
                 jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
        --------------------------------------------------------
  "The large print giveth and the small print taketh away." (Tom Waits)