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Porcupine Tree — Recordings
(Kscope SMACD840, 2001, CD)

Recordings Cover art

I picked up this limited edition disc at NEARfest last year. 20,000 CDs may or may not qualify for “limited edition" status and if sales are good enough you can bet there’ll be future pressings. Still, what’s on the plastic is good enough to warrant high sales numbers as far as I’m concerned. Other than the songs “Buying New Soul” and “Access Denied,” both written for the Lightbulb Sun sessions, there’s nothing here that hasn’t appeared elsewhere before, though you’d have to be a pretty devoted fan (and probably living in the UK) to have assembled these tracks heretofore. Plus, many of these songs have been re-recorded and appear here in their new guise for the first time. Case in point is the elegantly peaceful instrumental “Oceans Have No Memory,” which appeared in its original demo incarnation as the B-side of the Piano Lessons single. Most of these songs have similar origins. “Cure for Optimism,” for instance, was taken from the She’s Moved On CD single, as was the excellent instrumental “Untitled,” featuring terrific acoustic bass work from Colin Edwin. A real treat is the full-length “Even Less,” the first half of which shows up on the Stupid Dream disc, the largely instrumental second half taken from the Stranger by the Minute CD single. The combined 14-minute track is worth the purchase price alone for serious fans. Loaded with rare gems, Recordings is a great way to tide you over until the next PTree release and receives my highest recommendation.

by Paul Hightower, Published 2001-12-01

Fans of vintage Porcupine Tree can rejoice with the release of Recordings as it features numerous throwbacks to their much loved and more instrumentally oriented earlier style. Issued in an import-only limited edition of 20,000, the disc is a collection of b-sides, demos, and previously unreleased pieces. Given Steven Wilson’s obsession with quality, the nine tracks here are uniformly excellent and weren’t originally released simply due to the fact that they didn’t fit in with the more song-oriented nature of Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun. The only familiar song is “Even Less,” which is nearly doubled here in a spectacular 14-minute version with Floydian ebbs and flows reminiscent of “Echoes.” Most of the nine tracks are longer and more instrumentally oriented that show the band at their most adventurous. Wilson even lets his guard down enough to share a nine-minute group improvisation that displays a superb dynamic range that takes the listener from the quietest whisper of Colin Edwin’s bowed bass to the fury of the full band in crescendo. The final track, “Oceans Have No Memory” is a lovely shimmering instrumental that recalls Peter Green’s “Albatross” with its reverbed guitar melodies. All in all Recordings is an extremely strong disc that Porcupine Tree fans will want to snap up before it becomes unavailable.

by David Ashcraft, Published 2001-12-01

Filed under: New releases, Issue 23, 2001 releases

Related artist(s): Porcupine Tree, Richard Barbieri, Steven Wilson / I.E.M., Theo Travis, Colin Edwin

More info
http://kscopemusic.bandcamp.com/album/recordings

 

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