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██▌ Artist...: Porcupine Tree ░▐██▌
░▐██ Album....: plays Tarquin's Seaweed Farm ░██▌░
▓▐██ Year.....: 2001 ▓▐██▓
▓▐██ Rel.Date.: 2021-05-03 ░▐██▓
▐██ Genre....: Progressive Rock ██▌░
░ ██▌ Label....: self-released ██▌
▐██ Source...: CD ▐██
░▐██▌ Type.....: Album ▐██▌░
▓▄████ Quality..: VBR, 44.1kHz, Joint Stereo ████▌░
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1. Music for the Head (Here) 2:48
2. Jupiter Island 6:05
3. Nun's Cleavage (Left) 3:12
4. Clarinet Vignette 0:55
5. Nun's Cleavage (Right) 1:01
6. Space Transmission 3:05
7. Message from a Self-Destructing Turnip 0:30
8. Radioactive Toy 5:51
9. Towel 3:35
10. Wastecoat 1:11
11. Mute 8:10
12. Music for the Head (There) 1:29
13. No Reason to Live, No Reason to Die 11:20
14. Daughters in Excess 6:58
15. The Cross / Hole / Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape 20:38
------
76:48
It's interesting to check out the very first works of a band, such as
PT, that at the time was completely unknown, and now is considered one
of the best progressive rock bands of the last twenty years. Before all
that glory that we are all so familiar with, there was Tarquin's Seaweed
Farm, Steven Wilson's first effort ever.
All of this material (15 songs!) would end up in different albums: The
first 8 songs would eventually be part of the Steven Wilson's, aka
Porcupine Tree, first studio album, "On The Sunday Of Life...", even
though Wilson had to rename some tracks, and of course the music is the
same. All the other songs would end up in the first compilation album of
the band, "Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape".
In the first part of the album, you would be already familiar with the
songs, if you ever listened to the band's (pardon, Steven Wilson) debut
album. Like I said, some songs in this K7 have a different title, and
the song "Radioactive Toy" is much shorter than the version of "On The
Sunday Of Life...". In the second part of the album, all the songs were
never released in any studio album: "Towel" could have easily been a cut
from OTSOL because of it's naive experimentation and of it's pretty nice
melody. "Mute" is a great jam song, with a great but not so catchy
melody, while "There Is No Reason To Live, No Reason To Die" and "Yellow
Hedgerow Dreamscape" are real jam songs, 11 and 20 minutes of pure
hallucinative moods. Not to forget "Daughters In Excess", probably the
weirdest and creepiest song off the album, 6 minutes of musical
delirium.
To sum up, definitely a great album, recommendable to all PT solid fans
and to the "On A Sunday Of Life...." fans, even though I sadly notice
that they aren't too many of them.
---
The story of Porcupine Tree's strange and unique first recording starts
back a few years before the album was recorded. It all starts with
Steven Wilson, of course, who, when he was 15 years old and the year was
1983. Wilson recorded some music along with Si Vockings on keyboard
under the band name 'Altamont'. Alan Duffy, who ran Imaginary Records,
sent Wilson some lyrics inspired by the love both of them had for Syd
Barrett, and wondered if Wilson could provide the instrumental and music
background for them. Wilson says that the music on Altamont's first
album was really a compilation, two tracks from Duffy and two tracks
that he (Wilson) recorded on his multi-tracking equipment in his own
home along with Si. (Another album was released in 2002 that had more
Altamont music on it that was originally improvised live onto cassette
tape from 1983 ' 1985). Although there weren't too many copies made,
there were a few tracks that actually got put onto sampler albums, and
these tracks started the underground following that became Wilson's
first fans.
There was also another band that Steven helped form along with 3 of his
friends in school called 'Karma'. In October of 1983, this band released
a demo tape called 'The Joke's on You' which features the original 15
minute version of 'Nine Cats' which became a popular Porcupine Tree
song. It also contains the original version of 'Small Fish' another
track that was used by Porcupine Tree. Another demo tape was made by
this band in 1985 called 'The Last Man to Laugh'. The psychedelic music
produced by Altamont and Karma was circulated in the London musical
underground and these tapes were creating quite a name for Steven, so
even that early, he was on his way.
Finally, in 1987, Wilson formed two projects. One of these is the
well-known 'No-man' who he formed with Tim Bowness and Ben Coleman as an
art-rock trio, who, in the early years, remixed many of their songs to
make them usable in dance clubs. The 2nd project he formed was done as a
joke, or fake band, known as Porcupine Tree. Steven and a friend of his
created a fictional band made up of non-existent band members with
ridiculous names and backstories. The band was supposed to be a fake,
legendary seventies psychedelic band. To back up this story, Steven
recorded music and compiled it onto a cassette known as 'Tarquin's
Seaweed Farm' and a 2nd one known as 'The Nostalgia Factory'. Copies of
these tapes were sent out to various people, including the magazine
'Freakbeat' which was run by an individual who was setting up a record
company. A few tracks were used on some compilation tapes and that
sparked even more interest in the London underground.
Steven continued to distribute these two tapes while the record company
was being formed. He was eventually invited to be the first artist
signed to one of the labels (Delerium) and they wanted to release the
two Porcupine Tree cassettes on 2 different double albums. Wilson
decided instead to compile what he felt were the best tracks and
released what would become known as 'On the Sunday of Life'. That would
become PT's first original album. The remainder of the material from
these first two cassettes would eventually be released on the collection
called 'Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape'. Both of these albums would be
remastered and a lot of the music from YHD would be re-recorded.
So, there you have a brief history of the beginnings of Porcupine Tree,
who would become one of the most influential and important progressive
rock bands to arrive in more recent years. This review is for the first
demo tape called 'Tanquin's Seaweed Farm' also sub-titled 'Words from a
Hessian Sack'. This was originally an 80 minute tape released with a
booklet of fake information about the band. It was reissued by Delerium
in 1991 with a limited run of 300 copies. All of the tracks were
performed by Steven Wilson (so in actuality, it is a Wilson solo album).
The tracks were also all written by Wilson except for 'Jupiter Island'
which was cowritten by Alan Duffy, 'Clarinet Vignette' cowritten by Tim
Matthews and 'The Cross' which was written by Prince.
Side A of the tape is supposedly all studio recordings while Side B is
the live recordings. Side A consists of mostly psychedelic music
inspired by those bands from the 70's. Many of the songs from side A are
on 'On the Sunday of Life' (hereafter abbreviated as OtSoL) which can
still be found quite easily. There are a few of the titles that are
changed, but most of the music remains the same. Starting with 'Music
for the Head (Here)' we get a psychedelic instrumental introduction to
the album. It is minimalistic and it creates suspense for the following
track. You get woodwind effects and sitar over sustained synth drones.
This leads into 'Jupiter Island' which has a real 80's sound to it,
upbeat with high speed vocals. It is said that Wilson didn't think his
regular voice was good enough, so he had it sped up, and that is the
case with most of his vocals on this album. The percussion is
programmed, there are a lot of spacey effects and the vocals come in.
There is a guitar solo on the instrumental break. The tune is pretty
basic leaning towards space rock.
There is a slight difference in the naming of the tracks here between
the original and OtSoL. On this album, the track is called 'Nun's
Cleavage ' Left' while on OtSoL it is called 'Third Eye Surfer', but the
music is the same. The track is another psychedelic instrumental with
improvised percussion overlayered by synth improvisation and effects.
The 2 tracks on the original are 'Clarinette Vignette' and 'Nun's
Cleavage ' Right'. These two tracks were combined on OtSoL and renamed
as 'On the Sunday of Life', but again, the music remains the same. The
former track is more ambient with a lovely clarinet solo that eventually
fades into more psychedelia of the latter track.
At this point, OtSoL places the title track from the 2nd album 'The
Nostalia Factory' as the next track. After that, it returns to the same
sequence as Tanquin's Seaweed Farm with the scary, yet funny satirical
track 'Space Transmission'. This one has spoken word vocals that have
been processed through synths and is a first person telling of a strange
prisoner trapped by an even more evil entity. This should raise the
short hairs on the back of your neck. After this, 'Message from a
Self-Destructing Turnip' is a short and silly track.
At this point, both this album and OtSoL have the popular track
'Radioactive Toy', but the versions are quite different. 'Tanquin's
Seaweed Farm' has the original version which is much shorter and missing
the amazing guitar solo that is on OtSoL. So if you are looking
specifically for that song, I would suggest getting OtSoL. If you are a
collector interested in the original version, then you will want this
album. The remaining tracks on Tarquin's Seaweed Farm are not on OtSoL,
but most of them are on 'Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape', but in slightly
different versions. The remainder of the tracks on OtSoL are from 'The
Nostalgia Factory'.
Most of the rest of the album is instrumental with a few sections with
processed vocals. 'Towel' is the next track and it returns to
instrumental psychedelia. This track is more guitar driven than previous
instrumentals on this album. It is a bit more melodic with some wild
percussion, at least up until the last 45 seconds when it gets quite
haphazard sounding. 'Wastecoat' is more psychedelia with synthesized
effects, warped and spacey sounds, very glitchy sounding. Finally, we
come to a longer track at over 8 minutes, a mostly instrumental track
called 'Mute'. Some very strange sounds start this off which sounds like
it might have come off of The Residents 'Eskimo' album. Other than that,
it has some ambient sounds with minimal drones and effects, some lovely
synth improvisation and what not. It builds to a nice space rock style
similar to the instrumentals on 'Up the Downstair' and 'The Sky Moves
Sideways', so its very melodic and lovely, mostly produced by guitar. In
the middle, the music fades needlessly into the background and the track
gets ruined by some stupid spoken vocal effects. The music fades back in
again later though. (The version of this track that appears on Yello
Hedgerow Dreamscape is a different version than this one.) This side
ends with another version of the beginning track this time called 'Music
for the Head ' There' which is more psychedelia and ambience.
This is where Side B finally starts. There are only 3 tracks on this
side, but they are all quite long. This is supposedly the Live part of
the album, but I am pretty certain that the 'live' part is only
pre-recorded crowd noises. This starts with the 11 minute track 'No
Reason to Live, No Reason to Die'. This is pretty much an improvised
instrumental music inspired by space rock and psychedelic bands with the
guitar being the main instrument while everything else is support. The
beat is moderately slow with synths playing sustained chords and notes.
The keyboards help with improvisation later on and they alternate with
the guitar for the lead instrument. As the track continues, the rhythm
slowly picks up in tempo. Before you hit the 9 minute mark, the music
becomes ambient and atmospheric for the remainder of the track.
'Daughters in Excess' is another psychedelic instrumental track lasting
almost 7 minutes. It starts off minimal, but after a few minutes, it
gets quite loud with screaming guitars and effects and wild percussion.
The final track is actually a combined track of 3 songs. 'The Cross'
starts out the track which actually has vocals which were written by
Prince (this is a cover). The 2nd part is called 'The Hole' and it is a
short spoken word vocal that sounds like someone trying to get the crowd
excited. This section is not available on any other compilation and is
left off of Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape, but you aren't really missing
much as it is part of the original 'joke' of the fake band trying to get
the crowd excited. The last section is called 'Yellow Hedgerow
Dreamscape' and it makes up most of this 20 minute track. It is all
instrumental and contains more space rock style music driven by the
guitar. This finishes off the album.
This album does not appeal to a lot of people, unless they are already
fans of Porcupine Tree. Remember, this is the band (or at least Steven
Wilson) at the beginning of his career. It is not a recording you want
to start out with if you are planning on exploring PT's discography. It
is pretty much a document of where Steven's head was in the beginning
and shows you where this amazing band started out. Nevertheless, for a
young Steven Wilson, it is still somewhat astounding, especially
considering that he taught himself how to play guitar and keyboards. If
you are interested in this music, you would be better off searching for
On the Sunday of Life and Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape, as you will most
likely not find this recording. If you must hear it, your best bet would
be to try to find the recordings that are on You Tube, but be aware that
those recordings are not always the originals.
Since I am a rabid Porcupine Tree fan, I find this recording to be very
interesting and entertaining. It definitely is not my favorite by the
band, not even close, but I enjoy it for the historical aspects and
being able to hear Steven Wilson when he was starting out. I find a lot
of gems on this recording, and, since I am kind of a purist when it
comes to SW, I want to hear it in the order that it was originally
intended, with the untouched recordings. So it is important to me. But,
I got to keep this all subjective, so, the actual recording is obsolete
as far as most of the public is concerned. But because SW is so
talented, and there are a lot of treasures here, I have to at least give
it 3 stars. But in reality, to me it means a lot more than it would to
others. As far as the length of this review, I just had to get it out of
my system and hopefully add some insight into the beginnings of this
amazing artist, and maybe it will help others understand Porcupine
Tree's early music and the growth of the band.
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