off: PT TRANSMISSION # 16 -Forwarded

[Yuri Gagarin]

** Reply Requested by 1/1/1970 (Thursday) **
okay, attached (and if it screws up, sorry, but thats wordperf off for you,
soon we are to switch to pegasus, ohh, thank you mighty hawk ones) is an
interview with the porky tree for those interested....
        Date:  12/20/1995  10:16 pm  (Wednesday)
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     Subject:  PT TRANSMISSION # 16


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PORCUPINE TREE - TRANSMISSION # 16

Just a quick one... as the last Transmission of the year - hope you enjoy
this early interview with the Tree! We're away from tonight, but will bring
details of the Athens gig early in the new year - hope ya all have a good time!
Cheers
Ivor

CROHINGA WELL Issue 2 - PORCUPINE TREE INTERVIEW

Our lysergic dream juke box....
        .... at the centre of the universe

Just imagine, out there in the vast universe, alien lifeforms tapping our
radio & TV broadcasts. What an embarrassing spectacle we are offering them,
especially if they're able to receive MTV or one of the Top 20 radio shows.

In order to save earth's reputation, we dreamed up a "cosmic juke box" which
is placed at the centre of our galaxy and which sends its vibrations through
every planetary system. Every so many months we send a capsule with fresh
tunes, representing the better side of earth's music. Our first load of
singles and EPs is quite impressive: as a number one in our chart we got a
brand new release by Porcupine Tree, a single which lasts more than 30
minutes and describes the effects of LSD on the human mind. The title is
"Voyage 34" and the press
release gives us the following info: "Voyage 34 breaks through at Chill out
factor 34 and rising. Space rock smashes into ambient house and the two are
destroyed in a flash of white light. Porcupine Tree survives the impact and
steers past the debris in a psychedelic ship that runs on sheer mutant
orginality. It's a race for the outer limits at warp factor 10. Can you
handle it?" "Voyage 34" is released as a 12" single/CD singel on Delerium
Records.

This is the playlist of our cosmic juke box>

  1.    Porcupine Tree / Voyage 34 (12" single)
  2.    Soma / Warped (cassette EP)
  3.    Magic Mushroom Band / Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (12"
single)
  4.    Paul Chain / Violence of the Sun (17" single)
  5.    The Alchemysts / Stoned in Jerusalem (cassette EP)
  6.    Ballyhoo / S.F. Sorrow  (10" EP)
  7.    Cul De Sac / Sakhalin (7" single)
  8.    Pond / Young Splendor (7" single)
  9.    Jasmine Love Bomb / An announcement (7" EP)
  10.   Wig Torture / Didn't I tell you (7" EP)

        Space is deep.
                                Marc


The Porcupine Tree

Grantchester Meadows Revisited

British psychedelic music has definitely been on the rise these last few
years, growing in quality as well as in variety. Out of this chaotic,
throbbing cauldron of lysergic sounds (he's been at the mushrooms again,
ed.) and day-glo lights, two names have risen to the status of huge
underground success. The names we're referring to are of course the Bevis
Frond (representing late guitar-orientated psychedelic rock) and the Ozric
Tentacles (responsible for
a renewed interest in the Hawkwind/Gong type of seventies spacerock).

I think we may safely say that last year, a third name of some importance
has reared its head: The Porcupine Tree, whose sound seems modelled on the
musical concepts of the early seventies British psychedelic/progressive rock
scene (images of The Pink Floyd spring to mind). I spite of the fact that
The Porcupine Tree has been the proud father of three releases to date (the
two C90 cassettes "Tarquin's Seaweed Farm" and "The Nostalgia Factory", both
in 1991, plus this year's release of the double album "On the Sunday of
Life"), very little is known about this new, rather intruigueing musical act.

Our very own Crohinga Well flying reporter visited England this summer, and
with the help of Richard Allen (of Freakbeat magazine fame) arranged a
meeting at the latter's home, a meeting with someone who should be ale to
lay bare the essence of The Porcupine Tree for the Magic Mushroom radio
show. Outside, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and England was
enjoying a hot summer weekend (the last one this year, so I've heard). Talk
about "Sunday of Life"! And so we did ... the Sony Walkman was put on
"record", resulting in the following conversation being taped for posterity,
transcribed here for the perusal of our
readers.

MM      First of all, hello Porcupine Tree and welcome to the Magic Mushroom
radio show.

PT      Hello Marc, it's a pleasure to be here.

MM      One of the questions a lot of people are asking themselves is "What's the
real name of Porcupine Tree?"

PT      The real name of Porcupine Tree? Em. What makes you think that Porcupine
Tree is a pseudonym?

MM      All the information that was available about Porcupine Tree so far seemed
to point towards one person behind it all. But on the other hand it could be
wrong of course ...

PT      You could be very wrong, and I'm gonna leave it fairly vague for the time
being, yeah. Porcupine Tree for the moment certainly is gonna remain as a
title of a project rather than referring to anybody individual or a group of
individuals; it merely serves as a title of a project, and that project may
well be a solo project at the moment, but it could equally become a group
project in the future, so I'm kind of reluctanct to set down any rules as
far as who is or may not be The Porcupine Tree for the time being.

MM      But I can assume that you play a very important part in this project?

PT      You can assume that, yes. You can assume that the project has a
mastermind behind it and that person is myself, for the moment, although,
again, that may change in the future.

MM      Okay. The music that's available at this time can be found on two
cassettes and one double album, right?

PT      That's right, yes.

MM      It has, let's say a quite special form for these days.

PT      Mm.

MM      And why did you choose this form. Is there a story behind it, I mean is
it just your own personal choice, an old childhood dream come true... ?

PT      You could say that yes, I mean I obviously listen to a lot of music that
I suppose you would consider to be in the same genre (psychedelic music
and/or progressive music), but I think one of the reasons why possibly
Porcupine Tree's records are being perceived of as slightly more
adventurous, and having slightly more scope than some other records in the
field (at least that's the way I feel about them), is because I also listen
to so many other types of music as well, including jazz, classical, and also
a lot of contemporary popular and rock music
as well. You'll notice that all the things I put out, whether they be the
cassettes or the albums, have always been quite long; in fact the two tapes
are both double album length, and I feel that that particular format suits
the Porcupine Tree music, because there's incredible diversity in the styles
that I actually move through when I'm working on a Porcupine Tree record. So
you are moving from complete ambient soundscapes to almost cheap psychedelic
pop, and
then moving through a jazz improvized instrumental section and then on to
something completely different. So I find the double album format suits that
range quite well.

MM      So could we say you have a preference in music towards the, let's say,
the early seventies type of progressive because in those days double concept
albums floruished like flowers in a field.

PT      You could say that I have a preference for that principle, that idea, the
idea of a double concept album is one that appeals to me. But that doesn't
necessarily mean that I'm a great fan of a lot of the records that came out
in that particular area. I mean, obviously there are a few excellent ones,
but there were also a few that I would consider to be very, very poor indeed.

MM      Yeah, some of the worst ever made, like "Tales From Topographic Oceans".

PT      "Tales Of Topographic..."; I think The Who's "Tommy" is a very poor
record, but then of course there are great masterpieces in that field as
well, things like Pink Floyd's "The Wall", which is a great record, and also
there are the double albums that aren't necessarily concept albums, which I
think ae great records, like Can's "Tago Mago"; the first Pink Floyd double
album, "Umma Gumma", is a very, very big influence on my music. In fact I
always used to tell
people that the main reason for The Porcupine Tree coming about was an unnatural
obsessino with that particular Pink Floyd record, because I did have an
incredible obsession with that record, when I was young, and still do, to an
extent.

MM      I'm glad to hear it, because it's one of my favourite albums of all times.

PT      It's certainly in my top 10 of all time, yes.

MM      How do you write your songs or compositions, I mean, do you start from
the lyrics or do you start from a piece of music?


PT      I don't actually write the majority of the lyrics. One of my
collaborators in The Porcupine Tree, I was a big vague about who actually
takes part in the project, but there is at least one other person who
contributes the lyrics, a chap called Alan Duffy, who actually runs his own
record label, called Imaginary Records, up in Manchester. He's contributed
the lyrics to most of the material, so in that sense I always have the
lyrics first. But having said that, I never actually sit down with the
lyrics and write the music to go with it; I write the music and then look
through my folder of lyrics, and actually pick out the lyric that I think
suits the mood, or the feel, or the direction that I want to take with a
particular song. That's certainly been the case of up till now, it's a case
of marrying the two elements up when they're both fairly near
completion.

MM      Mm. I see. So you couldn't say that your songs were very personal?

PT      I always produce the tapes and records myself. I'm very much in control;
as I've already made the point I very much know how I want to record the
sound. So I have this idea in my head, this overall conception of how the
record should sound, so really I'm sitting there in the producer's chair and
I'm responsible for trying to realise that sound, the sound I hear in my
head, putting it onto tape. I'm very lucky that I have my own sixteen track
recording studio; I said I'm very lucky, I've actually built it up over a
period of time, by working, working hard to make the money to actually buy
that equipment, but I always saw that as a major priority, to build my own
studio, because I knew that was the only way I could actually realise the
ideas that I had. Because some of it, as you can probably realise by
listening to the record, is the result of a lot of experimentation.

MM      Yeah.

PT      And you get to hear the end results of that experimentation, but I also
make a lot of mistakes along the way, and I'm in the fortunate position
where I'm not paying to make those mistakes I can make those mistakes and
discard them, without having to worry about the financial implications of
doing that. So, for a record like "On The Sunday Of Life" I would record
maybe twice as much material as I actually eventually use, and that will
apply to all the future recordings as well.

MM      Since you're getting your lyrics from Alan, would you say that it's
possible for you to reflect your own dreams, your own thoughts in your music?

PT      Absolutely, yeah, I mean I think the performance, on guitar particularly,
is just as expressive, from my own  point of view, as actually singing a
lyric. I mean, okay, you don't have an actual narrative there, you don't
have words, but it's possible for yo to be just as expressive when you play
the guitar, or a keyboard solo, or anything like that. I don' t feel that
personal expression is the sole property of a singer or a lyricist.

MM      I see.

PT      Also, I should make the point that I do write some of the lyrics, if I do
have a particular idea that I want to get across, which has been the case
with "Radioactive Toy": there was actually something I wanted to get across
very strongly, so I did write my own lyrics to "Radioactive Toy". So there
are exceptions to the rule.

MM      I see. Do you play all the instruments?

PT      I can play all instruments. As I said, I do like to involve collaborators
from time to time, and there are collaborators on the record. There are
other guitarists, other instrumentalists, but on some tracks, yes, I do tend
to overdub all the instruments myself.

MM      Drums as well?

PT      The drums are not really drums, for the most part. They're programmed,
using samplers and drum machines.

MM      Of course, some people prefer live drums on a recording...

PT      I know a lot of people prefer live drums. I like live drums in some
contexts; in other contexts, I do prefer the programmed drums. I think it's
very important, particularly in view of ... in the spirit of which
progressive and psychedelic music was originally made. And I feel that in
the nineties and the eighties it's lost some of the spirit which it was
originally made in, in the
sense that you're continually absorbing the new technology, the influences
of the day, and trying to use them in your own musical scenario to make
something fresh, and that's why I embrace technology, to try and use it in a
psychedelic format and create something completely new out of it, by
combining the contemporary technology with the sixties and seventies ideals
of progressive and psychedelic music.

MM      The two cassettes that were released last year on the Delerium label,
"Tarquin's Seaweed Farm" and "The Nostalgia Factory", were they recorded in
the same period?

PT      No, in fact there was a difference in time between them; they came very
soon after each other. "Tarquin's" was started in late '87 and finished in
early '89, and "The Nostalgia Factory" was begun immediately afterwards and
finished in late 1990. As you know "On The Sunday Of LIfe" draws fairly
heavily on those two cassettes. We sat down and we selected what we felt
were the strongest, most successful pieces from those two tapes. And
remember those two tapes actually amount ot the equivalent of four LPs worth
of material, so we selected the best 80 minutes of music, but we also did
substantial remixing. In the case of this
one track, "Radioactive Toy", we competely re-recorded and re-constructed
the music, qand in fact we doubled its length in the re-recording from about
5 to 10 minutes.

MM      Why were there booklets with the cassettes?

PT      Why were there booklets? Well, originally, when I did the cassettes, they
were very much just the projects that had been realised in a studio by one
person - myself , and I thought it was a shame there wasn't any particular
history to go with the cassettes, kind of like one guy, in his studio,
making the music he loves. So I created this complete history from scratch,
this imaginary band, which I thought was fun at the time; I didn't have
particularly high expectations of the tapes at that point, I just thought
it'd be nice if they sold, you know a hundred copies, of these tapes, and I
was quite happy for that to happen, so I created this booklet just to give
something for people to actually read when they're listening to the tapes,
you know. Some sort of bogus history of this imaginary band.

MM      Yeah, it confused a lot of people.

PT      It confused a lot of people, and I think that's quite positive in a way
as well, because it gets people talking about you, and actually thinking
about you. Nothing would have been worse for me than for people to have
maybe played a track of the tape on the radio, and said, "Oh, well, that's
Porcupine Tree, and that's all I can tell you about them." So it's kinda
nice that there was actually some kind of information for people to talk
about; whether some of it was entirely true or not was another matter.

MM      You already mentioned the song "Radioactive Toy"...

PT      Yes.

MM      It's something special to you... I mean... I got the impression there was
some, let's say, a hidden form of politics, political comment in it.

PT      Yes, there were. That piece was very much about something that's probably
not so relevant these days, but, you know, even as recently as three or four
years ago the nuclear weapons sitation was quite serious, certainly  I was
quite concerned about it, and I'd also been very influenced by the later
Pink Floyd records, which are very obsessed with war, and the threat of
nuclear war. And also some films along the lines of "Apocalypse Now", and
there was a film that was shown in Britain, I don't know if you had it in
Belgium, "Threads..."

MM      Yes, I know, I remember it.

PT      "Threads", excellent film about the aftermath of a nuclear war. And I
found that quite terrifying. That's why I wrote the lyrics to "Radioactive
Toy", which originally formed part of a very long suite of pieces, called
"Precious Memories in Freefall", but that particular suite of music was
abandoned a long time ago. I felt that particular lyric was quite strong,
however, quite powerful, so I took it forward and I adapted it for that
piece of music. And that piece is no exception, in the fact that the music
came before I necessarily felt those lyrics should go with the music. When I
heard the music back it was quite sombre, quite dramatic, and the lyrics
seemed to fit very well over the top.

MM      I'm glad I got it right, anyway.

PT      Yes, it sounds like you did.

MM      Yeah, because when I heard it for the first time on cassette, for a
moment I saw the face of Reagan on top of it.

PT      Yes. Yes. Well, I'm glad that I actually got that point, or that mood
across.

MM      Another song which intrigued me a lot is "And The Swallows Dance Above
The Sun".

PT      Yes.

MM      It's something completely different, well, not only from the point of
view of the music, but is there any particular point in the lyrics, basically?

PT      Well, that's a lyric that I wasn't responsible for, but I can tell you
how I feel when I sing those words, or when I actually interpret them with
the music. It's a song very much about loneliness; it was originally called
"Like Ice On The Sun", when Alan first sent it to me but he retitled  it
later, "And The Swallows Dance Above The Sun". I think it's very much about
being drowned, drowned in a kind of a banal, uninteresting life, just this
feeling of sitting at home while the world goes on around you outside. And
it's like this image, of "And The Swallows DAnce Above The Sun", there are
these incredible things happening outside in the world, and I'm just sitting
here, drowning in boredom. And if you actually read a lot of his other
lyrics, they are about this sense of drowning in the mundane. There's a song
called "Linton Samuel Dawson", and the final refrain of "Linton Samuel
Dawson"  is, "he aids escape to tranquility
from the boredom of mankind". Now, what is the ... to be be in this
situation in this particular song, well in that situation it's a kind of
release from boredom through taking a drug, in this case LSD, "Linton Samuel
Dawson", LSD, it's the old "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" trick. So not
particularly on original idea, but I felt that it was a quite interesting
lyric, it was this idea of escaping from the mundanities of life by
exploring use of drugs, and so that final line "he aids escape to
tranquility", the "he" in that sense is the drug or this fictional figure
"Linton Samuel Dawson". So a lot of Alan's lyrics are about this escape from
boredom, and I think "And The Swallows Dance Above The Sun" is very much
that theme again.

MM      "Jupiter Island", for example, which is very joyful, is a completely
different kind of song.

PT      Mm. Well, "Jupiter Island" is one of those songs that I would put into
the category of pure psychedelic pop. And the lyric is not particularly
meaningful, there's no deeper meaning there, it's really just an exploration
of various psychedelic images, and if you read the lyric it reads just like
a kind of a series of images, that again you might experience under the
influence of some drug. So it's really just a psychedelic poem set to music,
which I have to say is very inspired by the very early Pink Floyd, you know
like the kind of nursery thyme quality that pieces like "Scarecrow" and "The
Gnome" had to them. A kind of Syd Barrett nursery rhyme quality. Also, I
remember when I did that piece, I'd just been listening to a track by The
Dukes Of Stratosphear, called "Bike Ride To The Moon", which you may know...

MM      Yeah.

PT      Which obviously in itself is a pastiche of another type of...

MM      Very well done!

PT      Very well done, I mean I love XTC as well, they're one of my favourite
bands, very clever; and I just listened to "Bike Ride To The Moon" when I
came to do "Jupiter Island", and I think they're quite related actually.

MM      Aren't you afraid a bit... I hope you don't care, but aren't you afraid a
bit that with all these psychedelic lyrics etc. you're going to be
categorised among, let's say, the old monsters, I mean, that people are just
gonna write you off as an old hippie...

PT      Yes, that does worry me, I mean, I will be honest: that does worry me,
but I would also say that there is an element of that in the past, which you
shouldn't necessarily take it as granted that that will continue in the
future. As I must confess that when I started The Porcupine Tree it was very
much a fun thing, it was just making music because I loved the idea of
making music. I've reached a point now, about four or five years on, where
the records are beginning to be taken seriously bby the people who listen to
them. I'm obviously aware of the fact and I'm beginning to take the music
seriously myself, so you could draw an analogy between The Pink Floyd story
again. You could say that on the early Pink Floyd albums the lyrics wre
fairly meaningless, they were just nursery rhyme lyrics; when you look five
years on you got works like "Dark Side Of The Moon", which are incredibly
politically aware, and also very, very dark in their imagery. I'm also
looking to explore the area more fully in the future,
but without losing a degree of that tongue in cheek quality. I always
thought it Pink Floyd ever had one fault, it was that they took themselves a
bit too seriously.

MM      They got a bit humourless.

PT      They got a bit humourless, and I don't want to lose that sense of humour,
but on the other hand, it's a case of striking a balance between, I think,
pieces which people can just listen to for pure pleasure, and pieces which
people can listen to to make them think, which will actually provoke
thought, provoke comment, or confront people's preconceptions or
expectations. Pieces like "Radioactive Toy", you  know, and I think they can
they can coexist
on the same record, a piece like "Jupiter Island" can coexist with a piece
like "Radioactive Toy". I like that diversity; some people might not like
that diversity. People might come and say, 'I like "Radioactive Toy", but
what's this psychedelic pop crap you've got on the record', or alternatively
people might say, 'I love the psychedelic pop, but what's all this pompous
serious crap you've got on the record', so I realise I'm never gonna satisfy
everybody, but I'm out to satisfy myself primarily, so if I like making
diverse records then I will continue to do so.

MM      "The Nostalgia Factory", the title track of your second cassette...

PT      Yes.

MM      I think there's a story behind this.

PT      There is a story behind "The Nostalgia Factory": the title of "The
Nostalgia Factory" was not the title that Alan originally sent me the lyric
with. I wanted to call the album "The Nostalgic Factory", or the second
cassette, rather, "The Nostalgia Factory", kind of as a .... it's a little
dig, if youlike, at what I consider to be a rather empty form of psychedelic and
progressive music, that's tended to exist basically from the late seventies
onwards, particularly prevalent now. While I don't necessarily dislike the
music, what I do find a little bit disappointing is the reluctance to move
into new areas. Now obviously that element is in my music as well, but I'm
looking to take it one step forward, I'm looking to actually make it
relevatnt in 1992, so that I can appeal just as much to the person who goes
out and listens to dance music and goes to clubs as I can to the old
hippies, who probably, you know, just have been massive fans of Pink Floyd
and collected records of Hawkwind or whatever. So I'm kind of trying to
bridge that gap. Now I think it's always a cop-out when bands don't do that;
they're kind of happy to rest on their laurels, and preaching to the
converted, they're preaching to this very small circle, and it is
unfortuately a fairly small cult audience we're talking about here. I mean,
The Ozric Tentacles I guess are probably the most successful psychedelic or
progressive band, whatever you want to call it, for quite a long time, but I
think even they are gonna find it very difficult to improve on their current
level of sales, because their music doesn't speak to people in the way that
it should.

Firstly, they don't use lyrics, which unfortunately is a .... I mean I don't
object to that, I think there are a lot of very important instrumentals
around, but the lack of using vocalists and lyrics is gonna be a problem for
them in increasing their audience. And also the fact that all their records
tend to sound like new age approximations of a Gong record from 1973. Okay,
now that might be very pleasant to listen to, and I , you know, I do enjoy
listening to the Ozrics, but I don't particularly think it's important in
the overall scheme of things. It's not making any important statements at
all. It's just like merely satisfying an appetite for nostalgia, and so,
when I called that cassette "The Nostalgia Factory", it was very much a
tongue in cheek... it was an ironic title to give it, because I felt I was
actually bringing something fresh to the music.
I've always been a very strong advocate of the use of technology, that's
really one thing that really separates The Porcupine Tree from other artists
in the field, who really would be quite happy to turn out 13th Floor
Elevators or Hawkwind pastiches, I think, for evermore. That's my personal view.

MM      It's up to them, of course.

PT      It's up to other people, yeah. But that's the way I hear, hear that
particular music. I like something to be a little bit fresh and a bit more
experimental.

MM      Is there any chance we'll be hearing this music of The Porcupine Tree live?

PT      Yes, there is, yeah. I just put a band together, with the help of my
record company, who's found some musicians for me to work with. I'm also
bringing in some of the other musicians that have worked on the records, or
on the cassettes, so we're probably gonna go out later this year to promote
the next release, which is going to be a single, in fact; probably out
around October/November time, so we'll go out and do some dates then;
probably only in
Britain to start with, but I'm quite happy to go out to Europe if we can get
an invitation, so I'm quite looking forward to it, actually. It'd be very
interesting for me to hear that material interpreted in a live context,
because obviously up till now it's been very much confined to the studio.

MM      And the way people are gonna react to it.

PT      Yeah. And the way people are gonna react to it live. And also, not just
the way people are gonna react to it, but the way that I and the other
musicians will develop the material, because obviously, some of it is going
to have to change so that it can be interpreted live, and I'm interested in
striking a balance between having fairly structured song sequences and
having some more improvised, experimental passages. I'm very keen to explore
that area, that The Pink Floyd explored on "Umma Gumma", that kind of
spaced, that frightened quality that the music had on pieces like "A
Saucerful Of Secrets", and "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun";
very, very powerful, very intense, but also quite free, in the sense that it
wasn't structured music, but it was just four people who were incredibly
attuned to the same way of thinking and to produce that music, which for me
is just astonishing.

MM      So you think that playing live would influence your music?


PT      I think it could change the way the music develops in the future, yes. If
the band is successful live, then I will be looking to use them a lot more
in the studio, and maybe for the first time using real drums in the studio.
Although at the moment I'm still quite keen on the idea of exploiting the
technology that's available to me. But that would certainly change things, yes,
the live performance aspect. I'd like to do a live album, you know; I'd like
people to have a document of what The Porcupine Tree material sounds like
when interpreted by a live band.

MM      "On The Sunday Of Life" is the tile of your finst vinyl release.

PT      Yes.

MM      "On The Sunday Of Life". It's a joyful title.

PT      Mm.

MM      And the cover of the album is a bit sombre, is a bit gloomy.

PT      Yes. I can give you a very good analogy for that: "Wish You Were Here" by
Pink Floyd. The title is very, very... "Wish You Were Here" is an expression
associated with people who are having a great time on holiday and they write
back to their friends "wish you were here", so it's a very joyful
expression. But you look at the sleeve and it's a very very peculiar, very
alien atmosphere that's presented by the sleeve, and I wanted that same
juxtaposition between the very joyful title and this kind of out there,
otherness quality to the record, and the Pink Floyd sleeves, particularly
the work of the artist Hipgnosis, or the group of artists who work under
that title of Hipgnosis, always had that quality, and I love that quality. I
want to try and bring that back, because again I get a bit tired of this
kind of psychedelic and progressive music having these wacky psychedelic....

MM      Splashed out...

PT      Splashed out things.... It's very typical, it's very boring. It was great
in 1967, but really, that area of using photography in the way Hipgnosis do,
has been very underused I think, in the last 10-15 years, and I'd like to
see it used again, and that's why I'm kind of championing....

MM      You could use computer graphics....

PT      Computer graphics, we thought about that; unfortunately computer graphics
is very much associated with...

MM      New wave...

PT      The new wave, and the dance craze, certainly in Britain. Bands like The
Shamen, and some of the other rave bands are using computer graphics, so
it's become associated very much with the extreme use of technology. I'm
kinda trying to fuse the two, the psychedelic, the more organic quality that
psychedelic and progressive music had, and the modern use of technology. So
I'm looking for a middle ground, and I thought that style, the use of
photography, but distorting that photography... the photograph on the front
of the album is obviously made up from two photographs, so you've got this
interesting juxtaposition of two
different photographs, that you wouldn't normally associate with each other,
in the way that you... look at the front cover of Pink Floyd's "Animals",
you've got a pig floating over a power station; that's not something you
would see walking down the street, so it's something when you see it, it
really makes you think, or makes you laugh, or whatever, but it provokes a
response. And that's why I'm particularly fond of that particular style of
artwork, and I think I
will continue to use that style. I'm very lucky that I also know a graphic
designer who's very good and who designed that sleeve; he's very good at
designing those kind of sleeves.

MM      So the future looks prosperous!

PT      I'm very much looking forward to the next record, because, as I said, the
first record "On The Sunday Of Life" was a  product of about four years,
during which I experimented with a lot of styles, a lot of lyrical ideas,
and made a lot of mistakes. Some of the mistakes are on the record, because
I thought they were interesting mistakes, they were mistakes which... were
kind of interesting to hear alongside some of the more successful pieces. So
the next
record will be more solid. It is gonna be another double album, it is gonna
be again quite diverse, in the different styles used, but it's also going to
be much more a product of the way I've been thinking over the last 12
months, instead of the way I was thinking over the last 5 years, because
I've changed a lot in that time; the music has changed a lot in that time.
We in Britain particularly have had a massive revolution in the dance
market, and I think the dance market now is just beginning to produce the
second wave, the interesting generation, bands like The Orb, bands like The
Shamen, who are taking the positive aspects of dance, giving them a more
psychedelic, a more exciting and experimental edge, and I kind of see The
Porcupine Tree could actually become part of that second generation of
bands, without losing the original audience. So I'm quite excited at the
prospect of that.

MM      Is there a working title for the new album already?

PT      There is a working title for the album, and I should emphasize it is only
a working tile, but the next album could be called "Up The Down Stair".

MM      "Up The Down Stair".

PT      "Up The Down Stair", yes. Okay. "Up The Down Stair" is a line from one of
the tracks; on a piece called "Voyage 34", there is a sample of a doctor
talking about the effects of LSD trips, and one of the statements he makes
is about a person who's had a very bad LSD trip, he said 'on this particular
trip, he met himself coming up the down stair', and I thought that was just
a really beautiful image to take for the title of the album, but it may
change. But that's my working title, anyway.

MM      Alright. I think we've talked about enough, maybe are there some last
words you'd like to add, to the radio, to the Magic Mushroom radio show, or
to whoever in Antwerp is listening?

PT      Err. Last words. Gosh. I don't think I have actually, no. I'm trying to
think of...

MM      Something with meaningful significance!

PT      Well, all I would say, I mean if there is a message behind The Porcupine
Tree's music, it is really to explore the possibilities of modern music, as
well as the historical music. If I could sum The Porcupine Tree's ideology
in a nutshell, I think that would be it: it's trying to use modern
technology and contemporary influences in a psychedelic progressive setting.
And I would really encourage, if there's anybody out there that is a
burgeoning artist, and they
are looking to create something in that particular genre, I would really
hope that they would do it with as much of an eye on the nineties as on the
sixties and seventies.

MM      Alright. Thanks very much indeed.

PT      It's a pleasure.

Thus was spoken on a sunny day in Britain, where now it will rain for a
million years. Now here's some more vital statistics: all of Porcupine
Tree's material was released on the Delerium Records label; and the list
goes as follows:

-       Tarquin's Seaweed Farm (C90 cassette)
-       The Nostalgia Factory (C90 cassette)
-       On The Sunday Of LIfe (double LP/single CD)
-       Voyage 34 (12"single/CD single), about 30 minutes long!

For all Porcupine Tree material, bookings, etc., contact:

        Delerium/Freakbeat
        PO Box 1288
        Gerrards Cross
        Bucks, SL9 0AN
        England

Thanks to Richard Allen for making this interview possible.


                        Marc
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