A famous occurrence found its way into Woody Allen’s film Manhattan. The director has just explained all the artistic allusion and metaphor in his latest work, pouring over details and really attempting to make an artistic statement. Then comes time for the audience Q&A session. First question: when are you going to be funny again? I had this thought while listening to Porcupine Tree’s latest, The Incident.
Before you misconstrue where I’m headed, let me say I enjoyed The Incident quite a bit. It is, as the prog rock geeks prefer, an epic with that first and title track actually being a suite of songs and interludes (14 in all), ranging from the opening piece of aggressive guitar, “Occam’s Razor” to the affecting pop-hard rock of “Time Flies,” the centerpiece of the suite, to the melancholic and affecting closer, “I Drive The Hearse.” Four additional songs are found on a second disc, unrelated to the suite but no less tonally similar, and here lies my hesitance about The Incident.
The band’s output has been steady and prolific, from chief Steven Wilson’s initial psychedelic leanings, to full-on prog, to a pop-rock feel for often forgotten gems like Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun. The band started to get broader attention with their In Absentia CD, but for the past few albums, that has been the dominant descriptor of Porcupine Tree music. Indeed, when people describe the band, they call on In Absentia, Deadwing, Fear of a Blank Planet and will surely add The Incident to that list, while there is a greater breadth of stylistic adventure just behind those recordings. It would be a broad stroke to claim the band has solely locked into a string of metal assaults punctuated by gorgeous, sad balladry, but each new album brings us closer to that conclusion. I’ve been waiting for that shift that used to occur every two or so albums. (more…)
Okay, I fully admit that as a guy who loves progressive rock, I’m setting myself up for ridicule and taunts from the peanut gallery. I hear you derisively yelling, “Math rock geek,” or “Lover of unicorns, ferries, and 7/8 time.”
Whatever.
Progressive rock is a genre of music that has an odd cross-section appeal. On the one hand, there are geeks who are lured by the complexity of the music. On the other, there are stoners who just love a good trip — and need an appropriate soundtrack. Sometimes you get a combination of stoner/geek in one person — and they end up creating things like Second Life or Boohbah. Me? I love melody more than complexity, so my tastes in progressive rock lean more toward what’s presented here.
The first time I heard Yes was in my junior year of high school. I had just moved to a new school, and I met a guy who turned out to be a huge lover of what we now call classic rock. Led Zep, the Doors, Hendrix, and Yes. One day, he lent me an old 8 track tape he had of Close to the Edge. I had an old stereo that had an 8 track player, and I must have listened to that tape for three days straight. I wasn’t too taken by the songs at first, but by day two, something clicked and I was hooked. (more…)
Porcupine Tree has been, for well on a decade now, a cult favorite trying to simply be a favorite, but there has been a problem in making that happen. That problem is the box lead member Steven Wilson refuses to be put in. The band started as a home studio project, a solo affair that leaned heavily on psychedelia, hence the trippy group name. The project would soon be fleshed out into a full group comprising Wilson, bassist Colin Edwin, drummer Chris Maitland (to be followed later on by Gavin Harrison), and former Japan synth player Richard Barbieri. With the expanded group ethic, Wilson found the proper tools to stretch out in progressive rock, pop, and even the current metal sound. That metal sound has, unfairly, caused some to blanch at the group’s Tool-like complexity and weight, which are mixed with Wilson’s harmonious, classic rock vocals.
And so it goes that radio programmers who need clear-cut lines of demarcation don’t know where to stick Porcupine Tree. For the most part it’s a cop-out, especially with their two most pop-centric releases, Stupid Dream (1999) and Lightbulb Sun (2000). While some songs do go off into eight-minutes-or-more fantasia, the majority on both releases are solid examples of pop songcraft, little marvels of production and eminently worthy of obsession. Amsterdam label Tonefloat knows very well about such obsession — they’ve been releasing Wilson’s music on high-quality vinyl for years, not just the recent Porcupine Tree album Fear of a Blank Planet (2007) but also his ambient forays as Bass Communion and his duo with vocalist Tim Bowness called No-Man. It’s a treat for fans of the band to finally have a vinyl version of Lightbulb Sun in their sweaty mitts. It couldn’t have come at a worse time, though.
Mind if I freak you out here? Yes? Too bad; I have nothing else to write about. Well, that’s not entirely true. I have a lot to write about, judging by all the files I’ve put up on the handy-dandy Popdose FTP.
1) No, you cannot have access to the Popdose FTP.
2) I mean it, NO, you cannot have access to the Popdose FTP.
See, when you write for a forum such as this, you can overload yourself fairly early, clogging the works with all those notions you’d like to tackle, restraint be damned. Then life gets in the way and you find yourself getting all topical and current and, very quickly, your digital cabinets runneth over. So I think it is time to do a little spring cleaning, with an added bonus of providing outlet for democracy.
(Get to the point, damn it!)
There are a few candidates on my list that I’m just not going to get to. As much as I love the music from these artists, it just seems more and more unlikely that they’re going to get their day. That’s where you come in. Your petty little vote may not mean much when compared to a mighty Superdelegate, but it means something to me. I swear, and not just because I’m trying to get to second base with you. I’ve decided to give you a choice for whom I next tackle. Simply drop a comment with your choice from the following artists and the act with the largest popular vote gets an expanded column. It’s that simple, and you’ll respect yourself the morning after. And yes, you have lovely eyes.
My mom, God rest her soul, hit the nail on the head. She always used to ask me, “Why must you do everything ass-backwards?” She had a point. Shoes went on before pants, finalizing efforts always preceded initializing efforts, and have you ever seen me get out of the backseat of a car? It’s like some horrid recreation of a breach birth.
So in this modern age, you can put a shiny, silver disc into the face of your car’s dashboard and hear wonderful sound. You can put a machine the size of a candy bar into your pants pocket and a headset the size of dental floss with tiny tumors into your ears and hear wonderful sound. Me? I like records.
A famous occurrence found its way into Woody Allen’s film 
. The director has just explained all the artistic allusion and metaphor in his latest work, pouring over details and really attempting to make an artistic statement. Then comes time for the audience Q&A session. First question: when are you going to be funny again? I had this thought while listening to Porcupine Tree’s latest, 
and 
. The band started to get broader attention with their In Absentia CD, but for the past few albums, that has been the dominant descriptor of Porcupine Tree music. Indeed, when people describe the band, they call on 
, 
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and will surely add 
(1996)
(1982)
(2004)
(1987)
(2007)
(1993)
(1987)
(2002)
(2009)
(1981)
(1988)
(2004)
(1996)
Porcupine Tree has been, for well on a decade now, a cult favorite trying to simply be a favorite, but there has been a problem in making that happen. That problem is the box lead member Steven Wilson refuses to be put in. The band started as a home studio project, a solo affair that leaned heavily on psychedelia, hence the trippy group name. The project would soon be fleshed out into a full group comprising Wilson, bassist Colin Edwin, drummer Chris Maitland (to be followed later on by Gavin Harrison), and former Japan synth player Richard Barbieri. With the expanded group ethic, Wilson found the proper tools to stretch out in progressive rock, pop, and even the current metal sound. That metal sound has, unfairly, caused some to blanch at the group’s Tool-like complexity and weight, which are mixed with Wilson’s harmonious, classic rock vocals.