The Porcupine Tree Corner

[Shawn]

Beautiful acoustic rendition of "Sentimental"

[Aggie87]

Hadn't seen that one, thanks Shawn!

[Aggie87]

For anyone interested, the 2 dvd "Insurgentes" set is available for pre-order from Burning Shed. First 2000 orders get a free gift, not sure what it is yet.

Insurgentes is the new documentary film about Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) directed by Lasse Hoile. Porcupine Tree are currently enjoying massive success across the world with their latest album, The Incident.

Insurgentes is a musical road movie that follows the making of his solo record of the same name, and is a portrait of an increasingly rare artist who works with music and media out of love and not for fame and fortune, persisting in making art on his own terms in a world where 'throw away' mentality is increasingly becoming the norm.

The film features footage of Wilson with other artists and friends including Mikael Akerfeldt from Opeth, the Israeli superstar Aviv Geffen and the legendary producer Trevor Horn.

The 2 disc set also features a host of extras and a 64 page booklet featuring photography by Lasse and Carl Glover, Steven’s long-time art collaborator.

Extras:

• 31 minute film of Bass Communion and Pig live in Mexico City

• Promo video for Harmony Korine

• 2 x trailers

• alternate ending

• footage of a Q+A session with Steven Wilson and Lasse Hoile at the international premiere at the Copenhagen film festival

• 6 audio out-takes from the album recording sessions.

Subtitled in Spanish, French, German, and English

Sound mixed in stereo and 5.1 surround sound

Also, the reissue of Recordings is up for pre-order. If you like Stupid Dream/Lightbulb Sun, this one's a no-brainer.

Appears to be a straight reissue of the original set, except in a digibook this time around.

[BFrank]

Well, I blew it and didn't see them last week.

After reading this review I'm really sorry I missed it. Oh, well ...

Definitely next time.

[Aggie87]

Well, I blew it and didn't see them last week.

After reading this review I'm really sorry I missed it. Oh, well ...

Definitely next time.

Wow - Pure Narcotic and the full version of Even Less!

I can't make the San Antonio show next week unfortunately. Gonna regret it even more if they play tracks like that.

[BFrank]

Well, I blew it and didn't see them last week.

After reading this review I'm really sorry I missed it. Oh, well ...

Definitely next time.

Wow - Pure Narcotic and the full version of Even Less!

I can't make the San Antonio show next week unfortunately. Gonna regret it even more if they play tracks like that.

I hear ya ...

[Quincy]

Just 8 days away from seeing them in St. Louis. Haven't been so excited about a rock show in a long time. Thanks for the Insurgentes news as Burning Shed has yet to alert me (though I know they will eventually. I mean I did pre-order the King Crimson 40th Anniversary releases so they know I still love them.) I have Steve's last solo album and have been looking to dip into some of his other bands. The DVD looks like a good way to do so and get some visuals too.

[jazzbo]

Thanks for the headsup! Also available through amazon.com for preorder (and also a new Opeth 2 DVD set and 2 DVD 3 CD set)

[Aggie87]

An update from SW:

Hi folks - so the free gift with the Insurgentes double DVD pre-order is almost certainly going to be a CD of archive SW material, pre-PT, pre-No-Man, pre-everything. When I was a teenager I was experimenting with all sorts of things, including songwriting, electronic music, psychedelic and progressive music..etc.. and made hours and hours of primitive recordings. Some of this fed in to the early PT cassette releases, but I've never actually tried to compile a whole disc of music from this era. Normally I wouldn't let any of this music out of the archive, since it's pretty primitive and amateurish in many ways, but since the film talks about how I started to make music, and has a few clips of my early efforts, it seemed logical to extend this idea through to this bonus disc. Please don't expect anything of mind blowing musical quality of importance! Just a bit of historical context. I need to compile this when I get back from the current PT US tour, so I don't know exactly how much music will be on there yet, but I hope at least 30-40 minutes or so. The original 2,000 copies of the disc that were going to have this free gift with them sold out very quickly, but now that we know that this archive CD will be the item in question I decided with Burning Shed to extend the offer for the bonus CD at least until the end of August. So please if you want this disc don't wait until it's too late and then get pissed at me that you have to pay silly money for it on eBay! On that subject please note that there are currently 40 copies left of the Cover Version box set, and about 15 copies of the IEM box set left - neither of which will be repressed. Sorry, I know it's been an expensive year for SW related special editions, box sets...etc...but if it's any consolation from October I don't think there will be any releases for at least 6 months or so - after that 2011 should be all about new music.

I'm actually really excited about this bonus now - should be very different!

[jazzbo]

[Quincy]

Great show by Porcupine Tree last week in St. Louis. They opened with the beginning track of The Incident, and Steve showed both a sense humor and a sense for the dramatic as well teasing out the opening chords. It was probably a 75 minute set with no encore (The Dear Hunter got a 1/2 hour to lead things off playing at ear-bleeding volume) so it was a mini-Incident show plus some hits. Most of the fans were there for Cochise and Steve early on jokingly asked that fans of that band who didn't know PT to please at least fake interest as otherwise he'd get upset. A song later he said he was pleased at their effort, and it's not like people were standing around talking by any means.

Oddly some of the Incident songs came off just a touch sloppy, and the only slightly dull moment was early on when Steve moved from guitar to piano. It seemed like they were emphasizing the metal riffs given the crowd. As noted earlier in the thread how the Fear Of A Blank Planet songs really pack a punch on the live DVD, I don't think I'm being hyperbolic by saying that they made the DVD versions almost seem like demos compared to what I saw. Man, they were just ripping those songs especially the portion of "Anesthetize" & "Sleep Together." (A nearby security guy even stopped paying attention to keeping an aisle clear and watched.) "Even Less" wasn't the long version, but it sure is an epic moment to hear those opening notes in person. From the looks of setlists I was lucky to hear it, though the trade off appears to be not getting "Russia On Ice."

The Pageant is a great venue in terms of sightline & sound, plus options galore as far as sitting or standing (and all ages section too). Their copy says no one is more than 70 feet from the stage, and they have an extremely efficient bar too. All drinks gotten in well under 2 minutes. Shame they don't have the selection like out here in the NW. The bar's name is Halo, but the band did not play that one. I only lasted about 1/2 hour for Cochise. Once the acoustic came out for a power ballad, I could no longer handle the anthropological observer aspect of it and decided to hit the rooftop bar of the Moonrise.

Here's the setlist, with a spoiler warning as they're keeping fairly similar when they're co-headling.

1. Occam's Razor

2. The Blind House

3. Great Expectations

4. Kneel and Disconnect

5. Drawing the Line

6. Open Car

7. Even Less

8. Anesthetize (middle part only, aka "The Pills I'm Taking")

9. I Drive the Hearse

10. Blackest Eyes

11. The Start of Something Beautiful

12. Way Out of Here

13. Sleep Together

[Aggie87]

Sounds like it was a great show, Eric! Envious of "Even Less" for sure!

[Aggie87]

Another update from SW, kinda disappointed about this.

The bonus CD with the Insurgentes DVD will be an unreleased 9 minute piece called Vapour Trail Lullaby (scrapped the idea for the archive CD, in reality the music was too awful to contemplate!) Lots more details up on the SWHQ website now - Carl has done some lovely artwork for this bonus disc too.

.and more info from SWHQ:

steven wilson - vapour trail lullaby (9.18)

this song was written and demoed for porcupine tree prior to the band recording 'in absentia', a prolific period of writing that resulted in perhaps the best pool of songs that the band has been able to draw from for a studio album to date. but as that album developed in a heavier direction, the song didn't really fit in stylistically, so was dropped quite early on and never recorded by the band. two years later it was included instead on the first blackfield album under the title 'lullaby'. the blackfield interpretation worked really well but took the song in a very different direction, stripping it down to just voice, piano and strings, so I took the opportunity to revisit the full arrangement of the song during sessions for my first solo album 'insurgentes'. this time the song went a lot further down the road (you can see me playing it in the film during the piano recording session at st bartholomew's church in brighton), but once again it didn't fit in with my more experimental ideas for the album (in many respects it just sounded too much like porcupine tree) so I never finished it, although I did adapt the coda section into the short instrumental album track 'twilight coda'.

even though the new version was much more fully realised, I find I still prefer the original demo version from 2001, so that is the one I have decided to include here. still, it's another part of the 'insurgentes' story, which saw around 30 songs, both old and new, and in many different styles, considered.

Edited September 1, 2010 by Aggie87

[Aggie87]

Interesting - now Wilson has posted one of his 1985 tracks on his myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/therealstevenwilson), I think as a gage to see what type of response he'd get.

To me it generally sounds like a young SW fiddling around with keyboards and sounds. But there's been enough positive response on his FB page that he said this:

OK - if you guys really don't think this is rubbish, then I will make available a 30-40 minute archive album to download for free from somewhere - I'll try to get this Soundcloud thing working. But I still think that I did the right thing with the bonus CD - Vapour Trail Lullaby is one of the best unreleased songs I have in my whole archive - just could never find the right place for it to fit in.

I'll post a link to the archive music once it's available.

[Aggie87]

I'll post a link to the archive music once it's available.

Some early SW tracks

These are downloadable - will be interesting to see if he adds to this with other tracks from PT or solo, etc.

[BFrank]

When I tried to DL those tracks there's a popup message that says "The track has reached its download limit"

[Quincy]

When I tried to DL those tracks there's a popup message that says "The track has reached its download limit"

I ran into that too, though now I'm able to download them. Not sure if there's a daily limit, or what. Link that's working as of Friday.

[BFrank]

Thanks. Yeah........it's working now. WAV files only, though.

[jazzbo]

Thanks for the link Quincy!

Not essential stuff, but interesting. (I really LOVE PT from say Signify on, "like" the stuff before, but don't listen to it with the same zest.)

[Aggie87]

SW is currently working on his next solo album apparently, as well as the Akerfeldt collaboration. Some interesting info from his FB:

"A little more about the collaboration album between myself and Mikael - so far we have 25 minutes of music, it seems to us like nothing either us have done before. Mikael is taking care of all guitars (since he's at least 100 times better than me), and I'm playing keyboards, percussion and doing orchestrations, both of us singing.

It's pretty dark stuff, in a way heavy music with no heavy metal elements. (-;"

- and -

"On a related note, the track I wrote for the originally planned Akerfeldt/Wilson collaboration all those years ago when it was going to be more metal orientated, "Cut Ribbon", is scheduled to finally appear on the next SW solo album (shaping up to be a very diverse double CD). Steve Hackett just played some fantastic ...guitar on a track for that one too."

[Aggie87]

Friday's the big show at Radio City - anybody going?

[BFrank]

Aren't you??

[Aggie87]

Aren't you??

Man, I wish I could swing a trip up to NYC for this show! They're saying it's going to be 3 or so hours of material, much of which hasn't been played before or at the very least in years. Hopefully a live recording will result from this and the Royal Albert Hall show.

In the meantime, SW has donated an exclusive solo track, "Home in Negative", to WNYC. It's something that he recorded for his new solo album, but decided not to include it. You can stream it or download it from their website:

Home in Negative

[Aggie87]

RCMH show just finished, here's the setlist:

Stranger by the Minute

Small Fish

Pure Narcotic

Black Dahlia

Futile (acoustic)

Even Less (full version)

Open Car

Lazarus

Tinto Brass

The Sky Moves Sideways (Phase I)

I Drive the Hearse

Bonnie the Cat

Occam's Razor

The Blind House

Great Expectations

Kneel And Disconnect

Drawing the line

Dislocated Day

Time Flies

The Pills I'm Taking

Up the Downstair

Sleep Together

Arriving Somewhere

Edited September 25, 2010 by Aggie87

[BFrank]

THAT ... I would have liked to see.

Hey, Aggggggg, look for the message I sent you a couple of weeks ago (through the board) that explains those numbers at the end of "Even Less".

Wild!

Edited September 25, 2010 by BFrank