classyyy

It's mind blowing for me to realise that it is almost exactly 20 years since Porcupine Tree made their first ever live appearance, at a small club called the Nag's Head in High Wycombe, UK on the 4th December 1993. To commemorate the anniversary here is a recording from the archives of the first song played at that first ever show, the Van Der Graaf Generator / Dead Can Dance sampling, David Gilmour meets The Orb fusion of Voyage 34 (years before he did actually collaborate with The Orb!), the birth of PT as a band and a performing entity.  It was recorded straight from the mixing desk so the balance is a bit strange, but actually considering how nervous we must have all been, it's not bad at all. 

Buy archive PT CD here

PORCUPINE TREE - Voyage 34 (Nags Head 4/12/1993)

Bleeding Fingers on Electric Guitar - Hans Zimmer

Desk Recording of Endless Tapes performing "Terminal 2" from Alice nella Citta, Cremona, Italy - 15th February 2014.
Personnel :
Colin Edwin - Fretless Bass
Alessandro "Petrol" Pedretti - Drums
Corrado Saija - Keyboards
Nicola Panteghini - Guitar

Terminal 2 (Live in Italy Feb 2014) - Desk Recording

U8 Touch Guitar new-baroque improvisation

Lamentation

VLASTUR - Parvati In Dub & Other Stories | In Focus | 14/01/2015

Tragically, this was Bob Belden’s last recording. 
....
	Listening to this darkly dystopian concept album made me wonder, “What would Miles Davis have done had he lived long enough to create the soundtrack to Matrix”?
	To help Belden realize his futuristic 2001: A Space Odyssey-inspired vision for Machine Language, he enlisted vocalist Kurt Elling as narrator for this cyberpunk opera. “My own memory of any conversations regarding the piece is that there was minimal discussion before making the voice over,” said Elling, who had previously appeared on Belden’s 1996 project, Shades of Blue. “The only real direction I received was to ‘sound like a sad, well-spoken computer.’ I did the actual recording by myself at a studio in St Louis, with Belden occasionally commenting via ISDN. I did a cold read once down, without music, and expected Bob to make whatever edits and adjustments he wanted.  I was in and out of the studio in an hour.” 
	Belden’s text for Elling reads like an excerpt from Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” which later became the literary source for the 1982 Ridley Scott movie Blade Runner. And the darkly foreboding music, performed by Pete Claggett on muted trumpet, Roberto Verastegui on electric keyboard, Matt Young on drums, Belden on soprano sax and Laswell on electric bass guitar, takes part of its inspiration from Miles Davis’ 32-minute ambient requiem for the recently-deceased Duke Ellington, “He Loved Him Madly” (from 1974’s Get Up With It). 
	The narrative arc of this cyberpunk opera begins with narrator Elling intoning over a droning ambient musical backdrop (in his finest Rod Serling-esque voice) about the difference between the irrational force of ‘human machines’ and the perfection of ‘pure machines‘. This exegesis leads to the instrumental “Machine Language,” which is fueled by Laswell’s bubbling Mu-Tron inflected basslines and Young’s hyper-interactive drumming. Elling advances the narrative on “Eternality,” in which the human machines try to exert a supremacy over pure machines, and music grooves along on “Consistent Imperfection,” which has Claggett’s muted trumpet sailing in half-time over Laswell and Young’s bubbling undercurrent and Verastegui’s spiky Nord comping and cascading arpeggiating. They return to hyper-drive on “Genesis Code,” spurred on by Young’s intense drum ‘n’ bass beats in tandem with Laswell’s pulsating low-end lines. Claggett wails with ferocious abandon on this aggressive jam and is followed in kind by Belden’s unbridled blowing on soprano sax. 
	Elling returns to narrate over the mellow keyboard work of Verastegui on “Evolved Virtual Entity,” describing how the pure machines begin to dominate the human machines “in ways that only fantasy had described,” leading to the loping and spacey jam “Disappearannihilation.” 
	While “The Evolution of the Machine” sounds like an outtake from Miles’ Bitches Brew, the throbbing, frantic tempo on the drum ‘n’ bass number “Dark Matter” is definitely of the here and now, providing both Claggett and Belden with some of their most impassioned solos of the set. The melodic powers of Laswell’s fretless electric bass are in full effect on the mournful rubato number “Technomelancholia.” And robotic narrator Elling returns to sum up Belden’s existential thesis on the closing track, “A Machine’s Dream”:

Can a machine dream?
What would a machine’s dream be?
Can a machine dream like a child?
Can a machine have an imagination?
Or does a machine dream of conformity, of accomodation, of servitude?

	Will a machine’s dream be inspired by a human model?
Or can a machine create and develop a unique dream into a reality?
Or would the machine’s dream be to create a new human machine,
a virtual existence gestated and nurtured by the pure machines?
                                                                                                                                 -- Bill Milkowski

Animation - Genesis Code

Animation - Dark Matter

Relentless: Sussan Deyhim and Peter Freeman
Produced by Peter Freeman
Featuring: Knox Chandler

2 - Relentless

Brilliant Waves

2. Terminal 1

MARK HEWINS - Slide Guitar & ELTON DEAN - Alto Saxophone -1988- Dedicated to Syd Barratt 
Recorded at Westwaters studio in Dalston, London during the 'Two's and Three's' CD recordings; Released initially on the 'Duo's' cassette as 'HeWins', this track was subsequently released on the CUNEIFORM EDQ CD 'Moorsong', apparently becoming the title track. (although very badly remastered - and not by me)NB:
I am still waiting on the royalties for any iTunes downloads from CUNEIFORM 'records' or for them to EVEN ASK MY PERMISSION TO DISTRIBUTE DIGITAL FILES OF MY WORK or forward ANY mechanical royalties due for my performance and co-writing on the MOORSONG CD. (Still waiting) 
Incidentally, even my personal copy of the 'MOORSONG' CD I had to purchase myself.

08 MOORSONG

Four

Ghosts Aquatic

Early Light

The new studio album from the Japan and Porcupine Tree maestro, Richard Barbieri. Planets + Persona is his most sonically expansive work to date with an array of guest performers
OUT NOW: http://found.ee/RB_PLANETS_PERSONA

As an ex-founder of the new-wave pioneers Japan, Barbieri was a leader in creating the ground-breaking synthesiser sound that defined the band and influenced the likes of The Human League, Duran Duran, Gary Numan, Talk Talk and a whole raft of artists to follow.

Following Japan, Barbieri joined Steven Wilson to form the legendary progressive outfit Porcupine Tree, playing keyboards on all the band’s albums since 1993 as well as releasing two striking solo albums: Things Buried and Stranger Inside.

In 2017, Barbieri releases his most sonically expansive work to date. Planets + Persona is his third solo album, but the first to feature such a wide pallet of instrumentation. Vintage analogue synthesisers combine with acoustic performances and jazz elements, including some stark and memorable improvisations from a personally hand-picked group of musicians. Twisted voices are always present, though not in a language we can recognise.

Recorded across Europe in studios in London, Italy and Sweden, Barbieri has succeeded in creating his most ambitious solo release with a central theme of duality that runs through the album. The album is complimented with photographic scenes of dramatic Icelandic landscapes in the 16-page booklet included with the CD to be released by Kscope in March 2017.

Order Planets + Persona: http://found.ee/RB_PLANETS_PERSONA

ORDER THE ALBUM

Richard Barbieri - Planets + Persona (album montage)

The songs and pieces of this project carry deep inspirations from the local and regional Arabic musical heritage mixed with the pulse and the sounds of modern arrangement approaches of the global musical culture form a reflection of the artist's vision on the creative capabilities inherent in the social movement accelerated in the modern Arab city, in its harmonies and disorders. Lyrics are a mix between contemplative look at the Jordanian identity, the country rural nomadic side and the mystic Soufi poetry. This is the 3rd production for Yacoub Abu Ghosh, who is considered one of the pioneers of the alternative music movement in Jordan.

Credits 
Yacoub Abu Ghosh: Composition, Lyrics, Bass, Guitar, Keys | Tamer Abu Ghazaleh: Vocals | Ahmed Barakat: Oud | Tareq Al Jundi: Oud | Ahmad Hisham: Drums | Tareq Abu Kweik: Drums | Nasser Salameh: Percussions | Khaled Yassine:
Percussions | Hamza Arnaout: Guitar | Udai Shawaqfeh: Guitar | Ayman Ibrahim: Guitar | Shadi Khashram: Guitar | David Tadovasyan: Trumpet | Dr. George Assad, Abdulrahman Dukhan, Qusai Abduljabbar, Qais Jumah: Strings | Nabih Boulos: Violin | Aziz Maraka: Piano | Oysten Bru Frantzen: Electric Piano | Yasmine Allami: Hammond Organ | Amro Salah: Synth

Track List
01 Blue Car
02 Mashghoul
03 Senses
04 On the Fly
05 Tal Al Safar
06 Bossa Share3 Al Malfouf
07 Asma
08 Sama3i Sa3eed
09 Mushtaq
10 Sukkar

As blue as the rivers of Amman

Samai Saeed

Download Album حمّل

Yacoub Abu Ghosh - Samai Saeed يعقوب أبو غوش - سماعي سعيد

UTE Live At Luton Tech 07 - 11 - 1992

Bassist for Porcupine Tree, other collaborations include: O.R.k. , Ex-Wise Heads (with flute/sax player Geoff Leigh), Burnt Belief (with guitarist Jon Durant), Endless Tapes (with multi-instrumentalist Alessandro Pedretti), Astarta/Edwin with (Ukrainian Vocal duo Astarta), Metallic Taste of Blood (with Eraldo Bernocchi), Slow Electric and Henry Fool (with Tim Bowness) also Twinscapes (with Lorenzo Feliciati) and Edwin/Durant/Kovtun.
Obake (with Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari,Eraldo Bernocchi and Jacopo Peirazuolli), latest album "Another World" with Robert Jurjendal,  and two solo albums so far....

2. Terminal 1

Colin Edwin

Recent comments

esumiyos

Jycan Smith

Related tracks