Allen reviewed the tape in both magazines. Nick Saloman, the cult UK guitarist better known as The Bevis Frond, had 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. Wilson sent out copies of Tarquin's Seaweed Farm to several people he felt would be interested in the recordings. Still showing the spirit of his joke, Wilson 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 created an 80-minute-long cassette titled Tarquin's Seaweed Farm under the name of Porcupine Tree. However, by 1989, he began to consider some of the Porcupine Tree music as potentially marketable. 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.Īt 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 and songwriter Tim Bowness. As soon as he had put aside enough money to buy his own studio equipment, Wilson obliged this creation with several hours of music to provide "evidence" of its existence. 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 1970s rock festival and several trips in and out of prison. Partially inspired by the psychedelic/ progressive bands of the 1970s, such as Pink Floyd, that had dominated the music scene during their youth, the two decided to form a fictional legendary rock band named The Porcupine Tree. Porcupine Tree originated in 1987 as a collaborative hoax project by Steven Wilson and Malcolm Stocks. 1.7 Reunion and Closure/Continuation (2021–present).The reformation was formally revealed on 1 November 2021, with the simultaneous release of the "Harridan" single and the announcement of a new studio album, Closure/Continuation, to be released on 24 June 2022.
In 2018, after years of indetermination, Wilson ruled out a possible reformation.ĭespite this, the band made a surprise reformation in 2021 with minimal advance publicity, this time with a trio line-up of Wilson, Barbieri and Harrison. In 2010, after the tour in support of their 2009 studio album The Incident (their biggest commercial success to date), the band became inactive as Wilson committed himself to his solo work and other members began working on their own separate projects. By the early 2000s, the band had signed to a major record label and shifted their sound again, this time in a more progressive metal direction.
Upon signing with Kscope record label in the late 1990s, the band began to approach a more mainstream alternative rock sound. Porcupine Tree's early sound evoked various styles of psychedelic rock, space rock and experimental rock, later moving towards a more progressive/space rock direction comparable to that of Pink Floyd. With Wilson as lead vocalist and guitarist, this remained the lineup until February 2002, when Maitland left the band and Gavin Harrison was recruited to replace him. By late 1993, however, he wanted to work in a band environment, bringing on frequent collaborators Richard Barbieri as keyboardist, Colin Edwin as bassist, and Chris Maitland as drummer to form the first permanent lineup.
The band began as a solo project for Wilson, who initially created all of the band's music himself. The group carved out a career at a certain distance away from mainstream music, being described by publications such as Classic Rock and PopMatters as "the most important band you’d never heard of". During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned critical acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became an influence for new artists. Porcupine Tree are an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987.