Porcupine Tree - Ambulance Chasers (1997)

In 1997 Porcupine Tree had left Delerium Records and hadn't yet signed with a new label, so they recorded demos for their next proposed album and sent cassettes of them to record companies in order to try to generate some interest. KScope took the bait, and in 1999 they released 'Stupid Dream', but in the meantime copies of the cassette had leaked, and a CD was pressed up and issued just before the actual album came out. This now extremely hard to find album includes demos of some of the songs that ended up on 'Stupid Dream', but it also contains a few other songs that didn't make it to the finished album. Despite being demos, these tracks are all superbly recorded, and even the songs that did end up on 'Stupid Dream' are worth hearing, with 'Even Less' being twice as long as the released version and having different lyrics, and although an extended take of this track has since appeared elsewhere, it's different to this version. 'Tinto Brass' is another song that benefits from an extended take, being three minutes longer that on 'Stupid Dream', and it uses that extra time to slowly build up to the main song, rather than diving straight in. Most of the songs that did appear on the actual album are slightly longer on here, as they would have been tightened up for the final sessions, but 'I Fail', 'Disappear', and 'Ambulance Chasing' are all exclusive to this album. I feel that the band are at their best when they are given time to stretch out, and so I love this album for the extended recordings that are on here, especially the seven minutes instrumental 'Ambulance Chasing'. I've created my own cover based on the original one, which is why it looks a bit different to one you might find online.   

Track listing

01 Even Less
02 Piano Lessons
03 Baby Dream In Cellophane
04 I Fail
05 Slave Called Shiver
06 Don't Hate Me
07 Disappear
08 Ambulance Chasing 
09 Tinto Brass 
10 Stop Swimming

Porcupine Tree - Voyage 34 There And Back (1993)

In 1992 Porcupine Tree issued their second single, following the 'Love, Death & Mussolini' cassette EP two years earlier, and this time they decided to make it an extended 12" single based around the LSD experiments carried out by scientists in the 60's. 'Voyage 34 - Phases One and Two' is a piece of pulsating space rock, spread over two sides of vinyl, with the first side clocking in at 12 minutes, and the flip at 17 minutes. I loved it, and having missed out on the vinyl issue I got the CD, and played it constantly. The following year they issued another 12" single, consisting of 'Phase III (Astralasia Dreamstate)' and 'Phase IV (A New Civilisation)', both lasting for nineteen minutes each. While not as immediate as the first release, it was still an intriguing experiment, as at this point in their career their albums were comprised of shorter, punchier progressive rock songs. In 2000 their record label Delerium Records complied both 12" singles onto one CD, but for reasons that I've never been able to work out they used a thirteen minute edit of 'Phase IV' instead of the full nineteen minute version. This is one of the main reasons that I've decided to mix all four tracks together into one long 68-minute piece of music, making sure I use the full takes of each Phase. If you've been enjoying my Porcupine Tree posts so far then you will have had a taster of the 1992 A-side on the live cassette tape 'Spiral Circus', and although this type of music is quite different to what they are now known for, if you think you'll like an ambient/trance/prog-rock crossover then give this a try. 

Track Listing

01 Voyage 34  

Porcupine Tree - Spiral Circus (1994)

Another cassette only release that Porcupine Tree put out was 'Spiral Circus' in 1994, which was a collection of recordings of some of their very earliest live performances. It was issued in a limited edition of 500 copies, of which the first 480 have white/pink artwork and the last 20 came with a different colour-scheme of white/blue, and it was given away free to subscribers of the Transmission information service. These recordings are taken from the band's live performances at the BBC, The Borderline in London, and The Nag's Head in High Wycombe, all recorded in 1993 directly from the mixing desk by Mike Bearpark, resulting in superb sound quality for a then unknown band. The album was re-issued on vinyl in 1997 by Chromatic Records, once again in a limited edition of 500 copies, and so as these are also now long gone, CD bootlegs have started to appear. The Nag's Head set has recently been expanded and officially released as 'First Live Performance' on Bandcamp, so do check that out as it includes the full hour-long set, and is an outstanding recording. 

Track listing

01 Burning Sky (1st half BBC broadcast 06 Dec 1993/2nd half The Borderline 07 Dec 1993)
02 Voyage 34 (The Borderline 07 Dec 1993)  
03 Always Never (BBC live broadcast 06 Dec 1993)  
04 Radioactive Toy (The Nags Head, High Wycombe 04 Dec 1993)  
05 Up The Downstair (The Nags Head, High Wycombe 04 Dec 1993) 
06 Not Beautiful Anymore (The Nags Head, High Wycombe 04 Dec 1993)

Porcupine Tree - Stars Die - rare & unreleased (1999)

By 1999 Porcupine Tree were a well-established band in the UK, and were rightly regarded as one of the best progressive rock bands around, but in an attempt to get them appreciated in Europe a cassette tape was issued in Poland containing a variety of rare and unreleased recordings. Three years later the tape was raided for an official compilation from their record label, taking both the artwork and the title, expanding it slightly to 'Stars Die: The Delerium Years 1991-1997', but only using a few of the tracks, and so the cassette version does still contain quite a lot of hard to find pieces from the band. The tape was a mixture of rare singles and b-sides on side A, with the flip being tracks from the 'Signify' recordings sessions, which had been released in their own right as the 'Insignificance' cassette in 1997. Some of the tracks on 'Stars Die' are in fact unique to the tape, with 'Wake As Gun II' in particular being nearly two minutes longer than the version on the 'Signify' re-issue, and it also includes a cover of Neu!'s Hallogallo segued into their own 'Signify', a live recording of 'Up The Downstair' from Rome, and an acoustic take of 'Nine Cats'. Although a lot of the the tracks have since surfaced elsewhere, this album is still worth having both as sampler of the band's output up to 1999, but also as the intriguing curio of a Poland-only cassette tape release. 

Track listing

01 Stars Die
02 The Sound Of No-one Listening
03 Colourflow In Mind
04 Fuse The Sky
05 Up The Downstair
06 Wake As Gun I
07 Hallogallo / Signify
08 Smiling Not Smiling
09 Wake As Gun II
10 Door To The River
11 Insignificance
12 Nine Cats

Porcupine Tree - The Love, Death & Mussolini E.P. (1990)

Porcupine Tree are an English progressive rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. The band began essentially as a solo project for Wilson, who created all of the band's music, and their early sound evoked a style of psychedelic rock comparable to that of the psychedelic/progressive bands of the 1970s, such as Pink Floyd, that had dominated the music scene during his youth. He was joined by Malcolm Stocks to form a fictional legendary rock band named The Porcupine Tree, and the two fabricated a detailed back-story, including information on alleged band members and album titles, as well as a colourful history which purportedly included events such as a meeting at a 1970's rock festival and several trips in and out of prison. As soon as he had put aside enough money to buy his own studio equipment, Wilson created several hours of music to provide evidence of the bands existence, and although Stocks provided a few passages of treated vocals and experimental guitar playing, his role in the project was mostly offering occasional ideas, with the bulk of the material being written, recorded, played, and sung by Wilson. 
At this point, Porcupine Tree was little more than a joke and a private amusement, as Wilson was concentrating on his other project, No-Man, an endeavour with UK based singer/songwriter Tim Bowness, but by 1989 he began to consider some of the Porcupine Tree music as potentially marketable, so he created an 80-minute-long cassette titled 'Tarquin's Seaweed Farm' under the name of Porcupine Tree. He still wasn't taking it entirely seriously, though, as he included an eight-page inlay which further revealed the hoaxed Porcupine Tree backstory, including references to fictitious band members such as Sir Tarquin Underspoon and Timothy Tadpole-Jones. Wilson sent out copies of 'Tarquin's Seaweed Farm' to several people he felt would be interested in the recordings, including Nick Saloman, the cult UK guitarist better known as The Bevis Frond, who suggested that he send one to Richard Allen, a writer for the UK counter-cultural magazine Encyclopaedia Psychedelica and co-editor of the UK psychedelic garage rock magazine 'Freakbeat'. Allen reviewed the tape in both magazines, and while he disliked some of the material, he gave much of it a positive review, and later became the band's manager, press agent, and promoter. 
In the meantime, Wilson had continued to work on new material, and in 1990 he released the 'Love, Death & Mussolini EP', issued in a very limited run of 10 cassette copies, and it remains one of the band's most collectible pieces. Because of its rarity it has been bootlegged and copies sold as originals, but original copies came with a handwritten letter by Steven Wilson and a 3-page A4-sized booklet with mostly imaginary credits, so beware. It was composed of nine at-the-time-unreleased tracks, as a preview for the upcoming second cassette album 'The Nostalgia Factory', which further expanded Porcupine Tree's underground fanbase, although at this point they were still carrying on the charade of being 1970's rock legends. Tracks 1 to 7 ended up on Side A of 'The Nostalgia Factory'. while track 8 was later released on the vinyl version of 'Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape'. Track 9 has never appeared anywhere else, although its name was reused for a different track that appeared on 'The Nostalgia Factory'. The notes from the cover are worth reproducing as they are quite amusing.

'Love, Death and Mussolini' is an E.P.
E.P. stands for 'extended player'
An 'extended player' is longer than a single but not long enough to be called an L.P. (a long player).
Here then are 3 songs and 2 instrumentals, new material from the band Porcupine Tree.
These 5 tracks last for about 20 minutes in total. 20 minutes is a good duration for an 'extended player'.
However, 'Love, Death and Mussolini' takes advantage of the cassette medium by including an additional 17 minutes of music taking it to L.P. (long player) length.
This is known as 'value for money'.
In the music industry it is known as 'marketing'.
Do your accounting to the sound of Porcupine Tree.

Track listing

01 Hymn
02 Footprints
03 Linton Samuel Dawson
04 And The Swallows Dance Above The Sun
05 Queen Quotes Crowley
06 No Luck With Rabbits
07 Begonia Seduction Scene
08 Out
09 It Will Rain For A Million Years