20 Mar 2022
March Through Time: Porcupine Tree
Led by Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree is for me the most important musical discovery of the 21st century. I first heard the group in early 2007, around the time of their ninth album, Fear of a Blank Planet. Interviewing Wilson for the first of several times then, I had a lot of catching up to
14 Apr 2020
Prepare Yourself: Porcupine Tree’s ‘The Sky Moves Sideways’ at 25 (Part 2)
Continued from Part One … The nature of the music on The Sky Moves Sideways gives bassist Colin Edwin comparatively little to do as well: while he’s an instrumentalist of the first order, there’s often not a great deal in Wilson’s compositions here that lends itself to low-end fireworks. While that would change significantly on
13 Apr 2020
Prepare Yourself: Porcupine Tree’s ‘The Sky Moves Sideways’ at 25 (Part 1)
Today, Steven Wilson is widely known –and acclaimed – as one of the busiest and most creative figures in music. Though he came to wider notice as a kind of progressive rock hero, helming remix/remaster projects for some of prog’s most beloved albums, he has always been about much more than art rock. His muse
02 Jul 2019
Stranger by the Minute: Porcupine Tree’s ‘Stupid Dream’ at 20
Porcupine Tree began as a ruse; Steven Wilson concocted a backstory for a fictitious band. But the prodigiously talented multi-instrumentalist crafted music to go with the legend, and thus the “group” was born. After a string of albums made essentially at home alone, Wilson put together an actual group and began playing live dates. 1996’s
27 Jan 2011
Interview: Steven Wilson on Porcupine Tree Rarities
Porcupine Tree recently reissued the rare outtakes disc Recordings. I spoke with group leader Steven Wilson about that album and other currently-unavailable material from the band. We also discussed his thoughts on working with other artists, something he does a lot of. — bk Bill Kopp: Over the last several years you’ve managed to make
02 Sep 2010
Interview: Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree – Do What You Love and the Fans Will Follow
“What I do barely feels like work to me,” says Steven Wilson. “People ask me, ‘Are you a workaholic?’ I respond that to be a workaholic, you’ve got to feel that what you’re doing is work. Making records, that’s not work. It’s fun, isn’t it?” By any measure, Steven Wilson is one of the busiest
18 Aug 2010
Interview: Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree
Note: Today Asheville NC’s altweekly Mountain Xpress is running my interview with Steven Wilson. That feature will be here in a couple of weeks; it’s ’embargoed’ until then. Meanwhile here’s a feature I wrote when I interviewed Wilson the first time. This feature appeared in print in January 2008. Porcupine Tree is a tough group
12 Jul 2010
DVD Review: Porcupine Tree – Anesthetize
From the opening menu of Porcupine Tree‘s latest concert DVD, 2010’s Anesthetize, it’s clear that the band is striking a decidedly different tone this go-round. It’s been four years since the band released Arriving Somewhere…, the live document of their 2005 tour. Back then, the band was promoting their then-current release Deadwing. Since that time
24 Aug 2009
New Porcupine Tree Video from Upcoming Album
Porcupine Tree posted a new video from their forthcoming album The Incident today. On first impression, the visuals evoked a strong sense of what I guess I’d call Englishness, and the sepia tones and occasional barbed wire in the Lasse Hoile-directed video brought to mind Storm Thorgerson‘s visuals for Pink Floyd‘s 1977 Animals LP. So
31 Jul 2009
Porcupine Tree: The Incident
This is big. UK progressive rock quartet Porcupine Tree will release their latest album — a 2CD set called The Incident on September 15. A sampler from the album is available on the group’s myspace page. For melodic, intelligent rock in 2009, you can’t do better than Porcupine Tree. (Read my 2007 interview with PT’s