Wanting people to only be able to obtain their music as full albums – continuous, coherent compositions rather than merely bunches of songs – it seems Pink Floyd inserted specific clauses in their contract, so this clarification of the law (a 'record' refers to a recording, not a physical storage format) might only apply to this one band, but it's going to be interesting to see how other artists with similar preferences respond.

Ordinarily I'd identify a few highlights and disappointments from the numerous releases I'd bought, but according to iTunes only nine of those albums and EPs were released in 2009, and I wouldn't consider any of them to be especial highlights. Most of those I have been enjoying were released in 2008 or earlier (if we consider year of composition, much earlier, in the cases of Bach, Handel & Vivaldi).

Looking down the list, I've realised that I'd have to listen to all of the 2009 releases again in order to offer any meaningful comments and, frankly, I really can't be bothered to do so. Hence, I'll just post the list without further comment, as a record of the new music which grabbed sufficient attention to justify purchases but which failed to sustain my ongoing interest.
That's not to say I disliked these releases, just that I haven't felt much need to return to any of them for a while; the most recent 'last played' date is a little under two months ago. To offer a few more iTunes stats: of the 99 tracks included, I rated one 2-min track as '5 stars out of 5', seven as '4 stars', 21 as '2 stars' and only three as '1 star'; the remaining 67 received a 'listenable but unremarkable' '3 stars'.

Bass Communion – Chiaroscuro

Freiband & Bass Communion – Headwind/Tailwind

Gazpacho – Tick Tock

Imogen Heap – Ellipse

Jónsi & Alex – Riceboy Sleeps

OSI – Blood
[Link is to the standard single-disc edition; I wouldn't recommend the version with a bonus disc.]

Porcupine Tree – The Incident

The Resonance Association – Clarity In Darkness
[To be fair, my receipt of a review copy coincided with a somewhat life-changing event, so I haven't been able to give this the proper attention it deserves yet.]

Sylvan – Force Of Gravity

One landmark: three of those links are to .mp3 downloads, primarily because CD editions are a little awkward to obtain, but partly because distaste for the packaging excesses of Steven Wilson's projects has developed into me actually preferring to obtain music without artwork or a requirement for shelf-space.

There are also people who engage in the mindless participatory sensation of whistling, yelling and generally flailing around at concerts.

The puzzling part is that they're often the same people.

Either it's 'just a bit of fun' or it isn't, surely?

• Pre-1960: 342
• 1960s: 111
• 1970s: 358
• 1980s: 342
• 1990s: 1239
• 2000s: 1750

I'm not sure why that was &ndash could it be that music technology was developing radically in that period, with the introduction of electric and electronic instruments, and corresponding evolution of production techniques? One consequence could have been musicians being as interested in experimenting with the kit and effects as in assimilating them then creating art.
I don't know; I'm idly guessing, but I do feel that the technology can be incidental in modern creative music (not mass-produced pap, and that wasn't a typo), rather than a marketable gimmick.

For some reason I'm really drawn to her breathy electronic pop; this may be my 'album of 2009'; listen to the preview (a stream of the whole album) to determine whether you agree.

She also knows how to release special editions credibly, too (unlike the materialist pretentiousness of Steven Wilson, for example). 'Immi's Preferred Edition' features the standard album on one CD and 13 instrumental versions of the album tracks on a second, with a 24-page booklet. No oversized hardback books, pointless exclusivity or prohibitive prices: Imogenheap.com offers the special edition for a mere £9 + P&P (£2 within the UK).

It's still not enough for last night's Proms performance of Beethoven's Ninth, though.

'Riceboy Sleeps' is the debut album by Jónsi & Alex: Jón Þór Birgisson of Sigur Rós and his boyfriend Alex Somers. The music (or at least the samples I've heard) has the distinct Sigur Rós sound, but in an ambient, almost totally instrumental context: perhaps post-rock without the rock.

As is becoming traditional, there's a range of editions to consider.

My preference is always for the one offering the most music (main album and bonus material) in ordinary CD-quality stereo (not surround sound), but that's balanced against my dislike of extraneous, gimmicky packaging, so this time I'll be going for the ordinary, single-disc retail edition, available from Amazon and elsewhere.

Rough Trade offers an 'exclusive' edition which supplements the main album with a second disc of music (by other artists) which inspired Jónsi & Alex, including Edith Piaf, the last ever recording of a castralto, Washington Philips & Audrey Hepburn. Frankly, I doubt I'd play that more than once, so won't bother.

The duo's own site offers a limited edition box set, featuring a 33-min CD of bonus tracks (instead of the Rough Trade disc, not as well) which I would like, but otherwise it's a splendid example of the OTT packaging I definitely don't need: apart from the box itself the CDs are accompanied by a hardback book of artwork and a 40-page colouring book, with coloured pencils supplied. Oh, and a badge.

No. Just 'no'.

You forgot to use 24K gold fuses, didn't you?

Actually, that's gold-plated, which makes even less sense.

[Via BoingBoing.]

As a couple of commenters on the article say, (rock/pop) concerts tend to be more about 'the experience' than the music itself:

And when attending a concert typically means 4-6 hours travelling, ~3 hours just waiting (to enter the venue, whilst enduring a support act and whilst the stage is reset) before the only 1½-2 hours that matter, plus the expense of tickets, travel, food & maybe accommodation, I'm becoming far more selective about whether to bother.

Another comment, by Daniel Black, puts it particularly well:

Back to Vinh for the final word:

Album of the Year
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Wonderful. I don't love every track – only most of them.

Highlights

Bass Communion - Molotov And Haze
[Reviewed here]

Marillion - Happiness Is The Road
Another peak on the Marillion roller coaster, another bungie-jump over the shark. After last year's excorable 'Somewhere Else' this was a very welcome return to form. It's no 'Marbles' or 'Brave' overall, but several individual tracks are of that quality.

Steven Wilson - Insurgentes
The release of SW's 'debut' solo album (in the limited sense of it being the first solo album released under his own name) was rather overshadowed by the grossly pretentious packaging and petty 'exclusivity' of certain tracks, both of which were a barrier to my appraising it fairly. However, despite not wanting to like it, I do – with the caveat that I only really like one track and I suspect this'll go the same way as SW's 'Blackfield' albums i.e. I'll have tired of it within a few months.

Also-rans (– but still pretty good!)

Bass Communion & Freiband - Haze Shrapnel
The Bass Communion track, an outtake from 'Molotov And Haze', is excellent, but the Frans de Waard remix doesn't add much.

Bass Communion - Pacific Codex
Pretentious over-packaging aside, I enjoyed the sonorous music, though after the long wait, it didn't turn out to be my favourite Bass Communion release.

Andrew Liles & Fovea Hex - Gone Every Evening
[Reviewed here]

Pg.lost - It's Not Me, It's You!
As I said in August, this Swedish post-rock band's debut EP 'Yes I Am' may have been my favourite discovery of 2008, but that's a 2007 release so doesn't qualify for this exercise. However, their debut complete album was released in September 2008 and it's... mixed. The first half is excellent, if a little less novel that the earlier material (which, to be honest, wasn't desperately novel, 'merely' very well composed and performed), but I'm slightly less impressed by the rest.

The Resonance Association - dronezero
Pretty good; no complaints, though it's not exactly groundbreaking, and is slightly disappointing after 2007's excellent 'Northern Coastline Soundtrack'.
And yes, I did buy the CD-R version.

The Resonance Association - We Still Have The Stars
[Reviewed here]

Expectedly Mediocre

No-Man - Schoolyard Ghosts
Meh. S'okay. On the whole, it may be my favourite No-Man album, but it's still just not the sort of thing I'd ordinarily choose to hear, and Tim Bowness's 'crooning' still annoys me. If only this was an instrumental project....

The Pineapple Thief - Tightly Unwound
Yet again, they've released an inoffensive, entirely passable album which I neither like nor dislike. I played it a couple of days ago in order to write this review, as I'd forgotten how it sounded... and have forgotten again. I recall that whilst I hear it, it's 'okay', but no more than that, and I don't know when, or whether, I'll bother with it again. That's at least the third time I've responded this way to a TPT album, and probably the last. It may sound cruel to classify 'Tightly Unwound' as 'muzak', but that really is the level to which it grabs my attention.

Porcupine Tree - We Lost The Skyline
I rarely listen to official live albums nowadays, but this one less than most: the sound quality's not that much better than a good audience recording, and the performance definitely isn't. I know people who attended the in-store mini-concert, and like this aide mémoire, but I suspect that added personal meaning is required to really enjoy an otherwise rather average album.

Disappointments

Opeth - Watershed
Oh dear. This is a case where my principles contradict my tastes. I highly respect the band's wish to progress musically, but I don't like the resulting music: I want full-on death metal from Opeth, and it'd be an understatement to say I dislike Camel-influenced 'prog'. All the best, guys, but we may have parted company.

Sigur Rós - Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
Initially, I was disappointed by this album, which contains fewer truly novel highlights than previous releases and, worse (for me), frequently has a more upbeat feel. However, having set my preconception and preferences to one side, it's grown on me a little, and the cheery climax of 'Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur' is a surprising favourite. On reflection, it's not a bad album; my iPod tells me I've rated two tracks as '4 stars' (of 5), one '1' ('Gobbledigook' is dreadful) and the rest an 'acceptable but unexceptional' '3'. I just don't rate it anything like as highly as the foregoing three albums.

Steven Wilson - Cover Version V
Nah. I don't particularly like the original of the cover track, but slightly prefer it to SW's rendition. As for the accompanying original song by SW: 'Well You're Wrong', er, is. Falsetto vocals never saved a mediocre composition.

Too Soon To Decide

Murcof - The Versailles Sessions
Maybe it's too soon to tell (I only heard it for the first time last week), but I suspect this was better as accompaniment to a visual spectacle than as the focus of one's attention, an album for home-listening. The novelty of using period Baroque instruments is just that, and of no particular relevance to the compositions, apart from my favourite piece, a reinterpretation of one by Lully.
Only for Murcof completists; the rest of us could have just waited for the next 'real' album in the wonderful 'M-U-R-C-O-F' sequence.

I simultaneously agree and disagree with Tim about Prof. Paul Crowther's discussion of the aesthetic value of music. It's not an easy read, packing a lot of content into a relatively short piece. Too much, really; a sensible 'rule' of writing is to make one point at a time, ideally one point per article/blog posting, whereas Crowther attempts to summarise what seems to be an entire book chapter. Yet when criticising the over-academic tone it’s worth remembering that Crowther is an academic, not a journalist, and he was invited to contribute by Jenkinson, himself not a journalist. It was misjudged, but I suspect Crowther provided precisely what was requested.

It’s not entirely suitable for a mainstream newspaper, and lacks the tight focus demanded by the context, but I didn't have trouble following the article (slowly…) – it's not suitable for the sort of reductionist who merely responds "Yeah, but does it ROCK!?" (hilarious.), but it's not that difficult, and at least there's no unintelligible jargon ('dialectical' is borderline). The overall 'message' is either absent or lost, but some of the individual statements are thought-provoking (not 'profound' – that's expecting too much). I particularly appreciated the observation that consumerism (and postmodernism, though I don't know much about those theories) "privilege the reception of artifacts over the significance of how they are created." Very true, and something which has been annoying me recently.

He finds the awful lyrics more of a barrier than I do (I just ignore 'em) and prefers the poppy short songs to the grandiose epics I like, but that's fine – just a difference of opinion, and not as dismissive as I expected.

Yet he still hasn't quite grasped it:

One quote that particularly grabbed me was from saxophonist Nathaniel Facey:

I know nothing about jazz, but maybe I ought to give it a try.

To be more precise, the 'special edition' of 'Insurgentes' is now available in two formats, for despatch in late November, but I recommend avoiding them in favour of a standard retail edition expected in early 2009.

The 'special edition' is offered in two formats:

• A CD with a second CD of 'outtakes', plus the same music in surround sound and higher resolution on DVD-A. The DVD will also include an 18-min extract from a forthcoming full-length documentary film.
• The music from both CDs on four 10" vinyl records, with no more than 12 minutes on each side.

You may be starting to see the problem. Whilst the prices of the items themselves are on the 'expensive' side of 'reasonable' (the CD edition costs £34, whilst Marillion is offering 'Happiness is the Road' as two CDs in smaller hardback books for £30), posting large items of such extreme weight, in special protective packaging, is expensive: £4.75 within the UK is okay, but €11.65 (£9.05) to mainland EU or $25.49 (£14.55) to the USA becomes questionable. And that's for the CD/DVD edition alone; a US collector ordering that and the vinyl would pay a startling $162.59, of which $51.89, or 32%, would be postage.

SW, Carl Glover and Burning Shed (the artist, designer and retailer) don't set international postage costs, so it's been justifiably said that they can't be blamed. Yet that's disingenuous: they didn't define the costs but have admitted that they were fully aware of what they'd be. They had an opportunity to say "we'd like to do this but it'll cost too much to distribute" – but chose not to. That decision was entirely their responsibility, and they have to accept the consequence: that alienating the fanbase could (should?) harm all involved.
Ordinarily I'd have been happy to spread the word about 'Insurgentes' without any particular caveats, but as you see, all I'm now inclined to do is criticise the excessive packaging & consequent shipping costs – I'm not even bothering to mention the music and it's no accident that I'm withholding links to related websites.

I have no objections to the existence of collectors' editions which the... less committed (aka rational) might consider overpriced; if people want to literally buy into an artist's aesthetics, that's fine, so long as more reasonably-priced editions exist too. 'Luxury' elements should be ancillary, such as additional artwork, minority-interest formats or, indeed, coffee-table books, whereas the core content (all the music) should be available to everyone (who's willing to pay a fair price – I'm not talking about free gifts!).
In that situation, calls to "stop whining – buy it if you want, don't if you don't" might be fair, but that's not the case here: it currently seems that the only way to legally obtain the music on the second CD would be to buy one of the hardback editions.

My own preference for the special edition would have involved the release of three distinct products:

• Two CDs and a DVD-A in packaging like the 'FoaBP' special edition (the discs in a digipack plus a perfect-bound booklet, both in a thick card slipcase). No hardback book.
• Box set of vinyl. No hardback book.
• Hardback book. No music.

'Insurgentes' is also an ongoing film project, with Lasse Hoile producing a documentary about the making of the album. A stated theme is:

An overreaction? In isolation, perhaps, but as not even the most extreme example of an ongoing trend not limited to SW's albums (as Porcupine Tree and other projects, particularly Bass Communion), it does need to be challenged. It's reaching a point where an album's 'special edition' is the primary release, with a nominally mainstream 'retail edition' actually being a cut-down afterthought released several months later, if ever. Again, I don't object to a collectors' edition being made available to a comparative minority, so long as that's alongside a less elaborate, unlimited edition for everyone else. One shouldn't have to pay extraordinary prices for additional cardboard just to hear the music – it's a game with which I'm rapidly losing patience.

I discovered TRA via their earlier dark ambient/post-rock projects, but I hear a lot more guitar-led space rock in 'We Still Have All The Stars'; the closing track might even be considered a bit too Floydian for some. The dense ambient soundscape is still there, though, and I'm torn between playing the album very loudly or at a level to best appreciate the depth of the mix. I might have to play it multiple times. Good.

I'd certainly recommend giving it a try, though I'm unsure about one track. TRA have produced techno-ish music before, but in the context of a largely instrumental, primarily space-rock album 'Unite', a track featuring guest lyricist/vocalist Scott Fuller, seems rather out-of-place.

This time the guest drummer will be Gavin Harrison (hmm. I'm not a fan), and there may be a guest vocalist alongside Moore.

Their eponymous 2003 debut is one of my favourite albums, and the second, 'Free' has flashes of brilliance. I'm looking forward to the third.

Perhaps not. Well done, gents: extremely well-deserved. I'd have been fairly pleased if Burial had won, but this is wonderful news.

That comparison is both a good thing and bad, since my initial impression of the tracks available online was that this could be new material from Explosions In The Sky. Well, no; my initial, less analytical, impression was "this is wonderful!", so it'd be a pity if some dismiss them as merely derivative. I like EITS immensely, but somehow I hear more humanity in Pg.lost's music; it's no less intricate or soaring, but possibly displays less introspection.

Apart from that Myspace site (the url of the band's 'official site' redirects straight back there), I've struggled to find anything about the band (a four-piece from Sweden) and, more importantly, any way to order their album, 'It's Not Me, It's You!'. I've finally discovered that it hasn't actually been released yet in Europe, so I'll have to wait until some time in September. In the mean time, I've ordered their (very affordable) 2007 EP, 'Yes I Am' direct from the record label.

Give 'em a try.

I've been known to partially participate, including here, but if I do, it tends to be in the form of, say, 'an arbitrary number of musicians whose work I appreciate, in no particular order', not a ranked 'top ten favourite artists'. I simply don't see value in that: it'd only be of applicable to me, at the moment of compilation, and the ludicrous idea that I like Bass Communion 'twice as much as' Porcupine Tree or 'four bands ahead of' Pink Floyd is not something that interests me.

Ahem. Okay, by inspiring an awful pun, the title of Mr. B's forthcoming album has successfully induced me to promote it here, but it's only fair to mention that a 6-min sampler medley of extracts from 'Stranger Inside' is available at the afore-linked KScope website (warning: Flash-only), and on the strength of that, I won't be buying the album.

No particular criticism; it's just not remotely to my taste – I don't do 'mellow'. YMMV.

[Update 20:04: Hmm. Those willing to provide an e-mail address are able to download one whole track, 'Hypnotek', in .mp3 format, which sounds less like 'easy-listening'. Maybe I'll hunt for more samples after the release date.
Incidentally, I suspect KScope expects people to use real e-mail addresses, but Guerrillamail is your friend.]

By definition, the hardcore fans tend to know about releases early (though I try to spread the word here), and get their (our) orders in quickly, so Headphone Dust seem to recognise their regular customers by name.
For example, I ordered the eighth Bass Communion album, 'Molotov and Haze', slightly late: as mentioned, I was 'on tour' 17-26 July, and happened to be without a network connection in Aberdeen on the day ordering opened. I'd established that this album isn't limited – it's even available at Amazon – so wasn't worried, but HD seemed surprised by the delay: the padded envelope I received was annotated beside the return address: "Where were you?!" Amazon doesn't do that....

The album itself is wonderful...ish.
'Molotov and Haze' contains four pieces, lasting from 12 to 23 minutes, derived from guitar tones heavily modified by SW's laptop. Two are 'beautiful', stressing the 'ambient' part of 'dark ambient', whereas the other two... aren't, more closely resembling industrial noise. Perhaps surprisingly, I'm drawn to one of each type: I hadn't expected to particularly like something which initially sounds like a ship's hooter jammed on for quarter of an hour, but as higher notes gradually emerged within the deep drone (which is itself less homogenous as it initially seems) of 'Molotov 1502'... well, I found it electrifying. The other 'noisy' piece, 'Corrosive 1702', was almost the converse: a higher-pitched industrial shriek which acquired deeper drones as the track progressed. I found it difficult listening; an exhausting experience.
The other two tracks, 'Glacial 1602' and 'Haze 1402' were closer to the hypnotic multi-layered modulated drones which first drew me into Bass Communion. As the Bass Communion Myspace site (which currently offers samples of 'Corrosive 1702' and 'Haze 1402') says: "transcendent".

Recommended.

Pretentious. Go on then: what does it pretend to be? If there's pretension, it's on the part of the critics, and their apparent po-faced adulation of convention.
C'mon; how could anyone interpret a performance scheduled to last 639 years, which is on its sixth note in seven years and which people visit on key dates to hear tone changes, as deadly serious? Don't be so ****ing worthy. Have you actually read anything about it, and noticed it serves as a framing element for other educational and musical projects?

Another criticism is that "anyone could do that". Trite, vacuous and irredeemably ignorant.
The ability to play an organ is a skill which I certainly respect, as is an ability to write organ music. But both are merely crafts, whereas an ability to derive inspiration from the instrument may go further: art. Conventionally, craft is considered a precondition for producing art, but it doesn't have to be: considerable technical ability on the part of the artist may or may not be involved, but that's a totally different issue, even a matter of coincidence. Banging two rocks together can be music, whereas as 70s 'prog' bands and their imitators amply demonstrate, the ability to wring intricate... widdly bits out of guitars and mellotrons has rarely produced art.
An object or performance may involve complexity, and an object or performance may be art, but there's no causal relationship: complexity isn't a precondition for art.

Production of art doesn't necessarily demand great (or any) technical ability, and nor does it necessarily require great intellectual effort.
Yes, in some cases the means of production, including the thought process, is part of the artwork, but sometimes only the result matters, whether it's a lifetime's work or the outcome of two minutes' daydreaming. I'd argue that it's even possible to generate art inadvertantly, perhaps by accidentally triggering one's camera at a fortuitous moment.

Art is about the reaction it inspires in the viewer or listener. If, after watching a film, one thinks "that was fun; what's next?", that's fine as entertainment, but it's empty sensation rather than art; it hasn't touched the viewer, hasn't provoked deeper, lasting thought; it hasn't changed the viewer.

That's not to say art has to have 'meaning', or convey some grand 'message'. As an organiser of the Halberstadt performance says, "It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just there." I really don't believe an artwork has to encapsulate ('contain') any ideas; many do, but it's not part of my definition of 'art' – it's entirely acceptable for an artwork to be an inert reflector of one's own ideas. An artwork doesn't need to give the observer anything, or interact with the observer in any way; sometimes the burden is entirely the observer's.
Self-reflection is a 'valid' reaction (as if validity needed to be proved) – some of the best art forces one to question oneself rather than the ostensible content of the work itself. Art can also inspire anger, even disgust – art definitely doesn't have to entertain.

But a blank refusal to engage with art.... No. I can't accept that. If you don't like an artwork, fine; that's your choice. But if you merely dismiss it, you're just a drone.

My player contains 3,595 tracks from 478 albums; some are complete albums, some just favoured tracks. In the following list of artists, asterices identify those with token presences, with the obvious exception of Frost*, as the asterisk is part of the band's name....

A Perfect Circle
ABBA
Afro Celt Sound System
Aghora
Agua De Annique
All Saints (arguably William Orbit with guest vocalists, really)*
Amiina
Amplifier
Anathema
Ian Anderson
The Animals*
Antimatter
At War With Self
Melissa Auf der Maur
Emilie Autumn
J.S. Bach
Martin Barre
Bass Communion (and collaborations)
The Beatles
Ludwig van Beethoven
Björk
Blackfield
Blink-182*
Boards Of Canada
David Bowie
Tim Bowness / Peter Chilvers
Billy Bragg
Carter Burwell*
Carbon Boy
The Cardigans
Catatonia*
Centrozoon*
Chroma Key
Continuum
The Cranberries*
Sheryl Crow
Darkroom
Sandy Denny
Dido
Nick Drake
Antonin Dvořák
Elbow
Edward Elgar
Aaron English
Enigma
Joey Eppard
Eurythmics
Evanescence
Explosions In The Sky
Fairport Convention
Fear Falls Burning
Fish
Foo Fighters
Fovea Hex
Frost*
Peter Gabriel
Garbage*
The Gathering
Gazpacho
Genesis
Ghost Circus
Godspeed You Black Emperor
José González
Henryk Górecki
Peter Green
h (Steve Hogarth)
Steve Hackett
G.F. Handel
Imogen Heap
Gustav Holst
I.E.M.
Invisigoth
Iron Maiden
Jethro Tull
Gary Jules*
Elias Kahila
Kamelot
Michael Kamen
Anton Karas*
Karmakanic
Kave
Keane*
Alison Krauss*
Laugan Evil
Leather Zoo
Liquid Tension Experiment
Marillion
Massive Attack
Loreena McKennitt*
Ralph McTell
Mind's Eye
Moby
Kevin Moore
Alanis Morissette
Murcof
Muse
No-Man
The Noun*
Michael Nyman
Oasis
Mike Oldfield
Opeth
Joan Osborne
OSI
Ozric Tentacles
Pagan's Mind
The Pax Cecilia
Peatbog Faeries
PFM*
Pineapple Thief
Pink Floyd
Porcupine Tree
Portal
Portishead
The Primitives*
Maddy Prior
Pulp
Pure Reason Revolution
R.E.M.
Radiohead
The Reasoning
Redemption*
The Resonance Association
Riverside
Joaquín Rodrigo*
Runrig
Franz Schubert
Stephen Scott
Seal
Howard Shore
Sigur Rós
Simon & Garfunkel
Clodagh Simonds*
Skye (Edwards)
Snow Patrol
Sörskogen*
Spock's Beard
Steeleye Span
The Stranglers*
Sunn O)))
Sylvan
Symphony X
June Tabor
Richard Thompson
George Thorogood*
3
Threshold*
Transatlantic
Paul Van Dyk
Suzanne Vega
The Verve
vidnaObmana
Fredo Viola*
Antonio Vivaldi
Roger Waters
Jeff Wayne
John Wesley
Steven Wilson
Joop Wolters*
Robert Wyatt
Thom Yorke
ZZ Top*

Overall, I have 3,595 tracks, which would take 13.8 days to play back-to-back. All tracks are in .mp3 format, the vast majority at 192 kbps.
Though the ability to carry videos certainly wasn't a selling point, the facility came with the iPod. However, the novelty of being able to watch Sigur Rós' 'Viðrar vel til loftárása' on a train soon wore off, so my player now 'only' contains 26.54 GB of music plus 224.7 MB of metadata & cover images. That's quite an impressive increase on the ~19.5 GB stored in my Creative Zen eight months ago.

Perhaps the most significant immediate addition was a large amount of 'classical' music – over a gigabyte – as I now have the space to carry, say, six hours of Beethoven symphonies.
For much the same reason (abundant space), I've added quite a few individual tracks by artists I don't otherwise like. For instance, if I like one song by The Stranglers, I'll add it, irrespective of my opinion (indeed, or awareness) of their career as a whole.
These isolated tracks are also possibly the most vulnerable: on a whim, I might add a sample track offered for download by an unsigned band like The Noun, but I might delete it just as easily.

Nominally, 478 albums are featured, but many are individual tracks, and as I clear out tracks I don't particularly like (see below), the album count could drop sharply.
I can't think of an easy way to determine the number of artists, other than manually counting them; anyone?

By definition, every single track has been played at least once, but 2,264 have been played only once and 1,064 haven't been heard within the past six months.
Conversely, I've only played 541 (15%) more than twice and only 71 (2%) more than five times. My most-played tracks are Fovea Hex's 'Allure' and Emilie Autumn's 'Chambermaid (Space Mountain Mix)', with 10 plays each.

The expected correlation between track rating and play frequency may be beginning to appear, but it's still masked by the effect of my repeatedly playing new albums to discover whether I like them. For example, Pure Reason Revolution's 'The Dark Third' accounts for three places on my 'Top 25 Most Played' list, though I've since become tempted to delete the whole album.

As that suggests, I've been able to very roughly rate my music, on a crude 1-5 scale. I'd have to question the validity and consistancy of the results, but if '1' indicates tracks I'm unlikely to want to hear again, '2' indicates tracks I'm more likely to skip than not, '3' indicates tracks I'd be happy to hear, '4' indicates tracks I'd actively choose to play and '5' indicates favourites, then I have:

• Rated 1/5: 113
• Rated 2/5: 752
• Rated 3/5: 1,997
• Rated 4/5: 628
• Rated 5/5: 105

That's more than enough statistics p*rn for now, but just one more parameter: eras of music I choose to hear:

• Pre-1960: 154 tracks – Anton Karas' 'Third Man' theme is the only one post-1939, and the only one unclassifiable as 'Classical' music.
• 1960s: 38 tracks – 'Abbey Road', Nick Drake's 'Five Leaves Left', 13 Sandy Denny songs and The Animals' rendition of 'The House Of The Rising Sun'.
• 1970s: 358 tracks.
• 1980s: 333 tracks.
• 1990s: 1,176 tracks.
• 2000s: 1,536 tracks – so the largest proportion is from the current decade, with 2½ years still to go.

The problem is the description of contributions by Laura Sheeran ("tortured and semi-hysterical vocals") and Michael Begg ("inscrutable audibles"). Okay, by many people's standards, I enjoy odd music*, but this might be pushing it....

**** it; it's only £2.50.

*: I promise there's no pretention in that – I listen to 'odd music' because I genuinely like it, never merely to be "more obscure than thou".

[Update 12:24: 'Every Evening' is excellent; easily worth £2.50 alone. Most of 'Gone' is good too, but I don't expect to want to hear Fabrizio Palumbo's spoken lyrics often, and as expected, Laura Sheeran's "tortured and semi-hysterical vocals" (only lasting a few seconds at the end) don't do much for me.

'Haze Shrapnel' comprises two tracks: a new 13-min Bass Communion piece from the 'MaH' project plus a 8-min remix by de Waard as Freiband.

It's solely available from MOLL, solely by PayPal: send a payment of €6 (worldwide postage included) to 'info@kormplastics.nl'.

If you like what you hear, consider buying some of their other EPs and albums.

In the Independent, Andy Gill dodges the distasteful task of discussing the latest album by explaining why Coldplay are so dreadful: whilst their music isn't 'bad', it hypocritically fails to acknowledge its utter vacuousness. I agree.

Given the choice between that and a retail edition in a standard jewel case, I'll happily pay an additional couple of pounds. In a few exceptional cases, I've paid almost half as much again as for basic editions. However, the material product isn't important to me – it's the music that matters – and I have no interest in the petty exclusivity of limited editions.

Unfortunately, recent trends seem to stress those elements, seemingly (to the cynical me) in order to justify startling prices – not 120-150% of the basic price, but 500% or more. The items do become mere 'items', conveying little more than the alleged prestige of ownership. Does anyone really need an album provided on CD and vinyl and DVD in a box which is, beneath all the sumptuous details, still just a box, and with the exact same tracks provided as high-res .mp3 downloads?

Preorders of Sigur Rós latest album 'Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust' have opened at sigurros.com (as opposed to their main and emphatically-hyphenated website, sigur-ros.co.uk). The standard CD edition will be despatched on or around 23 June, and costs £12. Other options, for £8 and £14, are available, but there's also a deluxe edition:

Perhaps not.

I usually prefer to buy albums direct from band websites, ensuring the retailer's cut of the selling price goes to the artists. However, attempts to milk fans via overpriced special editions rather alienate me, and now I'm far more inclined to obtain 'Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust' from Amazon.

If I like it at all, of course – I'll need to hear a few online samples before deciding whether to buy. I've heard 'Gobbledigook' (as can anyone willing to provide an e-mail address* before downloading), and wasn't, well, overwhelmed.

*: An e-mail address, but not necessarily a real one. Guerillamail is your friend.

Last year, New York band The Pax Cecilia distributed their album 'Blessed are the Bonds' as 'proper', pressed CDs in 'real' digipacks absolutely for free, to anyone who requested them, merely in return for a promise to spread the word – yes, they want people to copy their CDs for friends.
In February that ceased, with the dwindling stock of CDs being held back for (free) distribution at concerts. However, the album is now available for download from their website in non-DRM'd 192kbps .mp3 format. It's still entirely free, but if you like what you hear, there's a PayPal donation link on the download page.

'Blessed are the Bonds' demonstrates a high level of musicianship, production and general professionalism – this isn't the band's debut album (their 'Nouveau' CD was distributed the same way) and they're not unsigned because of any lack of ability. Rather, it's an apparent desire to distribute the music from band to listener without the restrictions of an intermediary, plus the implausibility of pigeonholing music which combines progressive metal, post-rock and ambient soundscapes, from a band with limited idea about where their tastes will take them in future. Interviewed for Deaf Sparrow last September, Kent Fairman mentioned a desire to follow 'Blessed are the Bonds' with a full-on 'heavy' album, or maybe something which "delves even deeper into conceptual elements and the possibilities of recording technologies". Not an easy career plan to market....

The opening tracks in particular are post-rock from the metal end of the rock spectrum rather than the more orchestral sound of Godspeed You! Black Emperor or ethereal sound of Sigur Rós, yet admirers of those bands, Explosions In The Sky and even the dark ambient Bass Communion would also find much of interest in subsequent tracks.
The (stereotypical?) post-rock climaxes are extremely heavy, but other sections incorporate melancholic piano and strings; few bands manage that balance without the very disparate elements feeling 'tacked on'.

Labels are of limited use, of course, but one I'd be particularly reluctant to use is 'post-metal', as that term is generally understood. A fairer description, referencing a band many are likely to have heard of, would be 'Godspeed You! Black Emperor does metalcore, with occasional vocals'.

The vocals/lyrics may be a slight weak point, particularly a couple of instances of incoherent shouted vocals, thankfully brief. There are minimal vocals overall: two tracks of the nine are fully instrumental, three have less than a dozen lines of lyrics each and the remaining three are primarily instrumentals. I haven't given the lyrics much attention (though my immediate impression is that they're overblown); it's claimed that there's an overall concept, but I'm afraid that has eluded me so far.

One thing I have noticed is nice sequencing: though each track is strong enough to stand alone, I find the album works particularly well as a coherent hour-long trip.

As I said when I discovered Gazpacho last December, I don't have a new favourite band, but I'm certainly happy to recommend you give 'Blessed are the Bonds' a try, if any of the above sounds interesting.

I'm afraid I found one slightly depressing:

Much as I'd loved 'Marbles' and that 'deluxe edition', I was deeply unimpressed by 'Somewhere Else', so decided to give the new preorder a miss: I want to hear audio samples before deciding whether to buy – I'm not taking anything on faith this time. However, H. (er, Helen, not Steve 'h' Hogarth!) told me it was very important that I didn't preorder by the deadline, so I have a vague idea about my next birthday present....

Yesterday, Marillion solicited opinions on whether to release an Ultimate Edition of 'Happiness...', in addition to the existing pre-order Deluxe Edition.

This is my response to the 'no' address:

• I'm interested in the content of a book, DVD or CD, not the object itself, so I find it difficult to comprehend (quite literally) the desire to own things for the sake of owning things. I can appreciate a particularly well-designed or attractive object, but not the mere fact that an object exists: "it's-another-Marillion-release-don't-care-what-it-is-I've-GOT-to-have-it".
• I could understand the desire to obtain an album at the highest possible sound quality, but if one had a DVD-A why would anyone also want a CD or LP of exactly the same music?
• I don't play the guitar or drums, so why would I be interested in a shaped piece of plastic or wood which happens to feature a band's logo?
• I can just about see why someone might want a cardboard box which has been in physical contact with that person's favourite musicians, and been signed as proof, but I still think that's rather pathetic.

*: Horribly twee title, in my opinion.

'Fraid they'd need to go a stage further in my case, and pay me to listen to such muzak, but even then I doubt I would.

Even if "shaping your spring" wasn't LiveJournal-ist pretention from which I recoil, it wouldn't be accurate. I've been listening to a lot of music recently, but largely to discover new music rather than using music I already own to accompany activities or affect my mood. Hence, I haven't been exactly obsessed with many songs. A few (well, seven, obviously) which stand out from the past couple of weeks are:

Emilie Autumn – Misery Loves Company
Goth techno-pop (self-described as 'Victoriandustrial'), is an interesting idea, and Ms Autumn is an excellent vocalist & violinist, but having explored online samples, ordered two recent albums then played more samples whilst waiting, I suspect her earlier (2003) material is more my thing (less repetitive lyrics, for one thing). The 'Opheliac' album will either grow on me a lot or drop out of my awareness rapidly (that seems obvious, but I mean it's not the sort of thing I could imagine liking casually), but I keep returning to this track, probably for the vocal rhythms.

Pagan's Mind – Hallo Spaceboy
The rest of the 'God's Equation' album is unlistenable, but there's something about this Bowie cover; I can honestly say it's a drastic improvement on the original.

Imogen Heap – Speeding Cars
I picked up the 'Goodnight And Go' single from eBay for £1 last week, and have been playing this 'b'-side repeatedly – in contrast to the crappy prog-metal I've been trying to offer a fair chance, this is bliss.

Frost* – Here Is The News
I don't know whether this ELO cover has made it onto an album; I heard it on an archived Rogue's Galley podcast. I don't normally do upbeat 'happy' music, but this got through somehow, perhaps for the same reasons as 'Speeding Cars'.
BTW, the asterisk is part of the band name, not one of my footnote identifiers.

3 – Wake Pig
Another from Frans' weekly podcast and like 'Here Is The News', a track I haven't bought on CD yet: I'm playing it to decide whether I want to hear more from the band which supported Porcupine Tree in N.America last year. I'm not sure about Joey Eppard's voice in this context though, oddly, I knew immediately that I liked his solo material.

Porcupine Tree – The Rest Will Flow
The remixing & remastering of the 'Lightbulb Sun' reissue seems to insert the freshness of a brand new album. This is the track which seems most enhanced – I hadn't particularly noticed it on the 2000 edition.

Nina Simone – Feeling Good
Not Muse's cover version. I bought all Muse's studio albums last year in a fit of enthusiasm which wore off very rapidly; I can no longer bear more than handful of tracks. Definitely mere shallow entertainment, not saying much.
Anyway: I heard the definitive 1965 rendition on A's .mp3 player returning from the Lakes a couple of hours ago, and it just seemed to fit the moment.

Kelly went on to ask an independent artist who does operate much this way, ambient musician Robert Rich, for his views. The result is a fairly long but interesting response.

In short: maybe, but it's not easy and there are problems. I was particularly interested by Rich's comments about artistic insularity – without the breadth of inputs from 'mainstream' distributors, he would never have become the artist he is, and if he felt obliged to satisfy the preconceptions of his 'true fans' in the interests of a secure income (he doesn't, but others in a similar situation might feel the temptation), his work could stagnate.

It may be worth mentioning that Rich became self-publishing well before the internet became available. I wonder whether a career more closely integrated with modern promotion & distribution methods at the 'formative' stages would be comparible.

[Via BoingBoing again.

Not particularly a traffic spike – the band becomes more of a minority-interest topic with each 'retro' tour, and Tull-related traffic rarely exceeds more than 15% of the Ministry's overall total – but there's been a distinct increase in the number of people typing 'Jethro Tull' into the blog's internal search utility. Time for a couple of reminders.

Firstly, as I said in the foregoing paragraph, the search box on each page of the blog is an internal feature which only searches blog posts – not the associate photos pages, nor the Tull-related 'departments'. For those, please use the overall, Google-based search feature on the home page and main Tull Tour History page.

Secondly, though I maintain the Tour History, I don't like Jethro Tull myself. Apart from references such as this, you're unlikely to find relevant entries in the blog.
To be more accurate, I do still kind-of like Tull's output 1971-1995, but nothing earlier (such as the 2008 tour setlist...), nor later – my interest in what Tull are doing nowadays is purely 'academic' i.e. in order to update the Tour History.

However, one of my (nominal) housemates at university, another in my first house in Lancaster and two of my current friends were always more interested than me, and I didn't actually own a Bowie album myself until H. gave me a 'best of' compilation last week.

It contains 39 tracks, theoretically representative of the range of Bowie's music over the first 33 years of his almost 40-year recording career (biased towards the more commercial material, naturally), but I'd only choose to copy 13 to my iPod, and only really like seven. Eleven are from the first eight years, two are from the Eighties and I kind of like a quirky Nineties track which would probably be better described as 'The Pet Shop Boys, feat. David Bowie'. Of the rest, I dislike half a dozen or so, and find the rest dreadfully samey. All credit to him for finding a coherent, characteristic sound and sustaining it, but I'm not sure whether it was ever truly novel, and, apart from superficial instrumentation and presentation, it hasn't exactly progressed for decades.

As I say, his music has always been there, so I'm surprised to find there'd have been little net difference to me if he'd retired in 1977.

Suggested applications include tuning a guitar or correcting out-of-tune harmony vocals – after recording.

Perhaps not a technology for live-music purists or opponents of manufactured pop, but still, a remarkable development.

I used to wonder whether I was missing something. Its themes are dark, but I normally like dark. It's generally misanthropic, but so am I, occasionally.

I briefly blamed its wordiness² for slowing the pace. On paper, there don't seem to be many lyrics, but they take the form of dense blocks of text better suited to careful consideration as prose. I presumed the repetitiveness of the music was an unfortunate consequence: that musicians had to repeat bars simply in order to accommodate so many words.
Yet on hearing it again today, I realised that's inaccurate: there are long instrumental-passages too, and they're no less ponderous. Well-played, no doubt, but lacking in creativity. If someone felt inclined to re-edit the main tracks to 60-70% of their published running times (10, 11 and 17 minutes), I'd probably be more interested.

The conclusion is the obvious one: it's just ****ing boring.

1: As opposed to the multitude who only own 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and 'The Wall'. There's nothing remotely wrong with that, of course, but I'm referring to those people who have heard the entire catalogue.

2: Dogs, sheep and pigs, satisfying metaphors for about a minute, become irritating when stretched for a further forty.

[Via BoingBoing.]

That led to an additional thought: British vocalists of that era frequently adopted Transatlantic singing voices, but off the top of my head, I can't think of a single modern singer who still does. When did that happen?

I was wrong. As samples demonstrate, the music is excellent; 'real' ensemble work somewhere between Philip Glass* and the (dark) ambient music I particularly like.

My presumption that it's new was mistaken, too; Stephen Scott has been developing the technique (including 'hardware' innovations) and composition for over thirty years. Very successfully, to my mind.

*: Sorry; I'm not especially familiar with 20th Century American composers: Glass is merely the most similar I can name offhand!

For those unfamiliar with Bass Communion, the music is dark ambient: primarily drones overlaid by instrumental samples distorted beyond recognition. On this occasion, the single 40-minute piece is "based entirely on processed and layered recordings of metal sculptures and gongs, creating complex waves of deep subharmonic sound". Carl Glover (cover designer) described it as "a soundtrack for a slowly sinking battleship making it's way down the Mariana Trench, whilst experiencing impossible levels of pressure on it's disintegrating hull."

Then again, those unfamiliar with BC are unlikely to spend £18 to investigate the project. That's pricey for a 40-min album, but as I've mentioned in previous entries, 'Pacific Codex' is the most lavish BC release yet (not that that's particularly important to me) containing a stereo CD, 5.1 surround sound DVD-A and 36-page booklet in hand-numbered, hand-assembled packaging.

Then again again, I kind of hope no-one buys it just on the off-chance that he/she might like it, as there will only be 975 copies worldwide, and there are more than 975 existing hardcore BC fans!

If you do want to try something else by Bass Communion, I can recommend 'Bass Communion I' (or 'Bass Communion II' if you can find it). Headphone Dust also offers the 20-min 'Droneworks 6' (under the title 'Dronework', for some reason) for a mere £5, so that might be a cheap sample.

*: Those in the USA may prefer to order from Equation Records.

[Update 12/02/08: Equation's allocation has sold out.]
[Update 19/02/08: Headphone Dust's allocation has sold out. That's all, folks.]

Before proceeding, I'd better stress that I'm talking about established bands appearing alongside others, not unknown ones trying to 'break through'. The latter have little to lose, or at least the flexibility to adapt to any opportunities, whereas the former already have a niche and a reputation to protect.

One apparent benefit of touring together is that a lesser-known (but not unknown) band can surf the brand recognition of a better-known band: "X must be good if they're opening for Y". Yet that relies on the relationship being accurate and complementary. Too similar and the support band may be accused of being a clone or even a tribute, and dismissed. Too dissimilar and the association is false, which can even become damaging if the bands become linked in the public's limited awareness.

An example would be Porcupine Tree, who supported Yes in 2002. There was a time when one could ask anyone dimly aware of that, and hear "Porcupine Tree? Oh, they're like Yes, aren't they? No thanks!" No, they are not ****ing similar, and I think that support slot was an extremely stupid idea. Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree has quietly admitted as much, saying that it was neither an enjoyable nor a productive experience.
Rightly or wrongly, the typical public and critical perception of Yes is very negative (and yes, shallow NME-style reviews do matter in marketing to the mainstream): they're considered to be regressive prog dinosaurs. Musically they are very dissimilar to Porcupine Tree and it's a unfair to tar the latter with the former's reputation. Porcupine Tree is a progressive contemporary rock (not 'prog' rock) band, a categorisation which needs to be communicated to the general public in promoting the band – an objective best served by actively avoiding false associations.
Thankfully, Porcupine Tree's career has developed since then, so the damage seems to have been minimal.

A second motivation for a 'name' band to tour with another would be to be heard by the other (presumably somewhat similar) band's fans. That may work to some extent, but there are two negative aspects.

The overwhelming majority of the audience will attend for one band, whether the headliner at a Yes concert or one of the headliners at a Porcupine Tree/Opeth show (they toured together with equal billing in 2003) . The other is merely an irritation, delaying the appearence of the preferred band. That's not conducive to giving unfamiliar music a fair hearing and may – may – instill a negative impression. I don't exclude myself from that: I've said before* that I dislike support bands, and usually time my arrival at a venue to miss the opening set.
The practical result is that audiences can be very unresponsive, talking over (or even heckling) the first band's set (that's very apparent in recordings of the Opeth/Porcupine Tree tour) or leaving after the first set (great for fans of the second band, but demoralising for the band). Either way, it's a unpleasant experience, far less enjoyable than two distinct concerts.

Secondly, concerts are generally of a fixed length, with doors opening (in UK venues) around 19:30 and a curfew at 23:00. That's fine when a support band's set only lasts ~45 minutes, but when two headline bands have to share equally, it means each has less time than usual. A typical Porcupine Tree headline set lasts almost two hours; on the joint tour with Opeth, they played for ~80 minutes and again, the tour recordings exhibit Opeth fans' noisy frustration that their band's set had been curtailed too. Less than satisfying.

It could even be argued that this whole exercise is pointless nowadays, when online samples and discussion groups are so readily available for such cross-promotion of bands. I know I prefer to encounter new music that way, then attend two concerts each devoted to one band, in the company of one band's audience.

*: Actually, that's another topic I've exhausted in discussion groups yet have neglected to mention here. I'm sure I will eventually. In short, I attend concerts for specific bands, not to hear music in general; I have no interest in hearing unrelated support bands.

Album of the Year

Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet
[Reviewed here]
This wasn't in much doubt – if only in subjective terms of my own preferences, this was well ahead of anything else released this year: the first Porcupine Tree release since 1999 that I've liked completely, from start to finish, with multiple highlights. This would rank highly on a hypothetical list of my all-time favourite albums, too.

Highlights

Continuum - Continuum II
[Reviewed here]
I wasn't sure about an electric guitar accompanying full-on, extended dark-ambient pieces, but when I'm in the right mood, this grabs my total attention. Transcendental!

Fovea Hex - Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent
I have to confess I was drawn to 'Allure', the third of this 3-EP project, by the participation of Steven Wilson, but I couldn't distinguish his contribution and there was nothing 'fanboy' about my being blown-away by the music itself: a wonderful combination of haunting, vaguely Celtic folk and stark dark-ambient music. The other two EPs didn't quite meet the expectations set by 'Allure', but the overall result is still one of the best albums I've heard for quite a while.

Porcupine Tree - Nil Recurring
[Reviewed here]
Not, as some people have said in year-end reviews, 'FoaBP/NR' – that's just plain incorrect, as 'Nil Recurring' is an entirely separate release featuring material which happened to originate at the same time as, if not slightly before, 'Fear of a Blank Planet'. It is not b-sides/outtakes from 'FoaBP'.
Anyway, I like it a lot, though it's not as consistent as 'FoaBP'.

Explosions In The Sky - All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
I said two years ago that I like this guitar-led, instrumental-only, post-rock. The new album isn't hugely different to its two predecessors (though stronger than the reissued debut album – if you're new to the band, don't start there!), but I liked them, so that's hardly a problem, and it's not really just 'more of the same'.

Sigur Rós - Hvarf-Heim
I think the band have called this a stopgap between 'real' albums or an offshoot of the 'Heima' tour & DVD project. I'd agree with that assessment: some of the live and revised arrangements of existing material are truly wonderful and the new material compares well with that on past albums, but I can't deny having hoped for genuine progression of the Sigur Rós sound.

The Reasoning - Awakening
An excellent reminder for me to keep my mind open: had I known before hearing the music 'blind' that The Reasoning are a new band featuring ex-members of 'neo-prog' acts Karnataka and Magenta, I wouldn't have expected the freshness and maturity of their debut album. The title track hooked me immediately, and repeated listening continues to unearth excellent details in the whole album.

Gazpacho - Night
My appreciation of this new discovery is developing daily, particularly as I become more accustomed to Jan Henrik Ohme's voice (I wasn't too sure about it at first). One could note a similarity to contemporary Marillion, but it's not too close and this is immeasurably better than the 'parent' band's 2007 release.

Expectedly Mediocre

Blackfield - Blackfield 2
[Reviewed here]
Like the debut album, I thought this was pretty good for a few weeks, but rapidly tired of it. I doubt I'd bother buying a third.

Riverside - Rapid Eye Movement
I was disappointed by Riverside's second album, as it lacked the novelty and energy of the first (my 'album of the year' acquired in 2005, though it was released in 2003). Hence, my expectations of this, the third, were more realistic: I didn't expect much, and was neither impressed nor disappointed.

Disappointments

Fish - 13th Star
[Reviewed here]
I tried to convince myself that I liked this, and I do think it works well when played as one continuous composition, in sequence, but occasional plays over several months have led to the conclusion that it's far from Fish's best.
In fact, I recently made an uncomfortable realisation. As I've mentioned, I've been listening to Frans Keylard's 'prog'-orientated podcasts for a couple of weeks in a conscious effort to widen my knowledge and discover new music. Apart from certain highlights (some on this list), the experience has reinforced both my prejudices about the stale 'prog'/'neo-prog' genre and my perception that there are 'top' bands exhibiting originality and musicianship, and 'also-ran' bands merely emulating what's gone before, somehow lacking the undefinable 'spark' of creativity that'd elevate them to the premier league of headline acts.
And '13th Star' very firmly fits amongst them.

Radiohead - In Rainbows
[Reviewed here]
I only have a slight interest in Radiohead anyway, and only like a few post 'OK Computer' songs, so I didn't expect to love the new album. It didn't meet even that expectation, and I only listened to it a couple of times.

Marillion - Somewhere Else
[Reviewed here]
This bored me in April, and I don't recall feeling the remotest urge to play it since then. Best, and easily, forgotten.

Too Soon To Decide

Pineapple Thief - What We Have Sown
I only received my copy a few days ago, and haven't even heard it once from start to finish, so I better hadn't comment, beyond saying it seems much more promising than '12SD'/'10SD' (haven't heard 'Little Man' yet; that arrived with 'WWHS'). There are another six days until the end of 2007, so if I get an opportunity to give the album my full attention (possible but unlikely), I might post an update.

I really wish that example was an oddity, but band after band alienates me within the first few lines. With the exception of a couple of bands, lyrics aren't especially important to me, but those of these second-division prog bands really are obtrusively dreadful; I can't avoid listening and cringing.

Reader, I bought that CD. ;)

I seem to have missed the pre-arranged meet-up of PTF members; I knew some planned to be at the designated pub from 15:00, but I wrongly presumed they'd still be in residence when I arrived at 18:00.
Not to worry; I was soon adopted by a friendly couple apparently on the basis that they and I looked "suitably biker-gothy" without having resorted to such kiddie-metal stereotypes as faux-leather trenchcoats. Porcupine Tree audiences are getting younger. Pleasant couple, and that's not a reference to a laced-front leather bodice which was more laced than bodice, and which seems to have driven out much recollection of our conversation. Ahem. I do remember they weren't going to the concert, so I left them there at ~19:20 and crossed the road to the venue – accompanied by Richard Barbieri, Colin Edwin & Gavin Harrison, returning with a takeaway. Good start.

As I'd known in advance, remodeling work in the main Academy venue (Academy 1), which was the reason Porcupine Tree performed in Preston instead in April, is still ongoing. The hall itself was usable, obviously, but access was through a fire exit and the toilets were in a portakabin outside. Fine with me, but I think the lack of a cloakroom caused problems for some people.

Once inside, there was absolutely no hope of meeting anyone, as the hall was in near-total darkness, illuminated only by a couple of blue spotlights on stage plus the lights of the bar and merchandise stall, both obscured by the small but rapidly growing crowd. I'd already bought a tour T-shirt (er, three different ones, actually) by mail order from Burning Shed, so didn't need to investigate the stall myself, so I wandered around the room a little (which seemed unchanged; presumably remodelling has been confined to the backstage and foyer areas, the latter still boarded-off at the rear of the hall) then just as I decided to find a spot to stand, at 19:45, Anathema's Vincent Cavanagh was suddenly already on stage. I didn't get as far forward as I could – large gaps remained in the thinly-packed crowd – but it seemed rude to push past and obscure the view of shorter people at the very last moment.

Within a few moments of starting, Danny Cavanagh (lead guitar) was exhorting the audience to clap along, which would have been a bit of a mistake even if this hadn't been a typical Porcupine Tree audience, seemingly unresponsive yet fully attentive: they (we) hadn't yet warmed-up sufficiently that we wished to participate. Unfortunately, that established the relationship for the entire set. I hope the band understood their audience; Vincent didn't seem impressed and his statement that they'll be back next year "as headliner" seemed to have an edge.

It was a well-chosen 45-min set, showcasing the high-energy rock and 'menacing' intensity I particularly like in their music, yet with space for some of the gentler, melancholic material I, er, appreciate less.

Fragile Dreams is amongst my favourite Anathema songs, so was an excellent start.

A Simple Mistake is one of the three songs released via the band's website as a preview of the next album. I hadn't been overwhelmed by that studio arrangement, but it worked much better live, particularly the powerful second half.

'Closer' was the song which introduced me to Anathema, so it was particularly good to hear it the first (and certainly not last) time I've seen them live.

Without wishing to criticise, Lee Douglas's voice (or more generally, female voices like hers) isn't to my taste, and nor are the slower-paced Anathema songs on which she sings, so I wasn't overjoyed that she joined the band on stage for 'A Natural Disaster', a song which I've just noticed I hadn't even bothered to upload to my iPod. Played at concert volume, I was wincing by the end.
She stayed to sing backing vocals on 'Angels Walk Among Us', which was preferable, but I wasn't pleased when Vincent thanked her by saying she'll take a greater role in the next album.

Somehow I didn't realise until later that Deep had been played; it segued straight from the unfamiliar (to me) 'A Natural Disaster', so perhaps I confused it for part of the same song. No, I don't know how, either.

Flying is another that I hadn't particularly appreciated on the 'A Natural Disaster' album (my least-favourite of Anathema's post- doom-metal releases), but it worked well live.

An as-yet-unreleased track, Hindsight closed the set. I think it was fully-instrumental apart from a vocal sample from what sounded like an American self-motivation album, which somewhat detracted, in my opinion.

Both in terms of music and live production, it was clear that under normal circumstances (i.e. with the backing of a record label) Anathema are a headline act. After their set, it took a full 15 minutes to clear the stage of their monitors and equipment (seemingly assisted by Jamie (third Cavanagh brother and bass player) – not so typical of a headliner!) and they made good use of the lights (if with a little too much dry ice – Les Smith (keys) and Mick (drums) were almost invisible at times). For a support band, the sound was extraordinarily good, though not in the same league of clarity as Porcupine Tree. It was particularly noticeable that Anathema's richly-textured music came across well, in extreme contrast to Amplifier's muddy sound in April.

Some Porcupine Tree fans encountering Anathema for the first time have commented negatively about Vincent's 'out of tune' vocals and John Douglas' 'imprecise' drumming.
Firstly, Vincent's diction (not just accent) is strongly Liverpudlian, more so than, say, The Beatles, and the melancholic nature of the music demands a certain delivery which I think he fulfills well. If you want a polished, formally-trained crooner, you have the wrong band.
Secondly, there's more to musicianship than empty virtuosity, and I've never noticed a problem with John's drumming, whether on studio albums or live recordings. I couldn't judge for myself this time, as John had become a father earlier in the day, so the band was accompanied by Mick, a stand-in who certainly seemed familiar with the material.

As soon as Anathema left the stage, some people headed for the bar, but otherwise there was a general shuffling forward, eliminating gaps and dodging around those slow to join in. I ended up at least 10 m further forward, 6-8 m from the stage, dead-centre, with only one taller person in front to my left. Perfect; I had a great view throughout the main set, though Wes was slightly obscured. There wasn't much room to move, so it's lucky that those (very closely) around me weren't inclined to, and the half-hour wait before the main set, in a London Underground-like crush, was rendered bearable by watching the bands' techs clear and reset the stage.

Porcupine Tree's stage setup was identical to that in Preston eight months ago, contributing an odd familiarity. In fact, that was my overall impression of the concert: truly wonderful, and I enjoyed myself tremendously, but somehow it lacked the novelty and extra thrill I'd experienced in April merely from being in the presence of the band. That's not necessarily a disadvantage, as I was able to focus more on their performance and the music.

There were a few videos and lighting effects projected behind the band, but as usual I consciously ignored them (I attend concerts to see the band perform for real, live, in front of me, not to watch something prerecorded) so can't really comment on their content. I did get a dim impression that there were fewer Lasse Hoile videos than on previous tours; perhaps 5 of the 15 songs (indicated with asterices below), as opposed to 8 of 16 last time. The remaining songs were accompanied by more abstract, less attention-drawing lighting effects.

I'm pleased to say the audience (at least those in earshot and in my line of sight) were particularly still and attentive – some would wrongly say 'unresponsive', but there was plenty of appreciation at the appropriate times: between songs. I was aware of people around me taking the opportunities of quiet sections to exchange comments, but no-one near me was shouting or jumping around.

From my position 8-10 m from Steven Wilson (SW), the sound was excellent, with clear stereo effects and good balance on both quieter and 'full-on' material; perhaps the guitar separation wasn't perfect, meaning a few subtleties were only apparent because I was listening for them. However, as explained below, I moved to the extreme rear left corner of the hall during 'Trains' and noticed a general deterioration in sound quality (hardly surprising) and a distracting effect off the temporary back wall, which mightn't have optimum acoustics. As in April, the sound was loud but 'clean', and as I was walking back to the station my hearing was about as clear as when I'd entered the Academy, which makes a tremendous difference to one's appreciation of the music.

The basic logistics of SW being unable to switch guitars quickly enough and having too much to do in complex arrangements of (in April) fairly new material rather dictated the relative roles he and John Wesley played on the last tour: on several songs Wes played lead guitar and the electric solos whilst SW played the acoustic or rhythm guitar parts. Another reason was apparently that Wes improvises solos in his own style rather than following the album arrangements closely, adding novelty to live performances. I can certainly respect that reasoning, but I don't actually like it. I do appreciate Wes' playing on his own albums, but given a direct choice, I prefer SW's sound, and in general I dislike improvisation. Hence, I was very pleased that SW and Wes switched back this time, Wes returning to a more supporting role and SW taking more of the solos himself. I was only jarred out of my rapture twice by Wes solos which I didn't think quite worked.

The set featured fifteen songs and no instrumentals, though several of the chosen songs include extended instrumental sections. Six songs were from 2007, three each from 2002 & '05, and one each from 1995, '96 & '99. That's the balance I expect at Porcupine Tree concerts, emphasising the 2002-2007 albums with a few token representatives of the earlier back-catalogue. I was interested to hear that the band varied the setlist rather a lot on this tour; six songs were replaced for the following night's concert in Leeds.

There was no distinct intro track this time: the band walked on stage to the accompaniment of a few seconds from Lasse Hoile's 'Blank Planet' short film (as seen on the 'Fear of a Blank Planet' DVD-A) then launched straight into the song itself, Fear of a Blank Planet*. An excellent start to the album, and equally so in concert.

As I said in my review of the 'Nil Recurring' mini-album, I suspect What Happens Now? was derived from jamming and was in turn cherry-picked for details when composing the main 'Fear of a Blank Planet' album. Live, that relationship operated in reverse, the song neatly summarising the overall feel of the album without quite quoting from other tracks.
Incidentally, congratulations to SW for hitting the high notes live!

As usual, it was good to hear The Sound Of Muzak, but the 'as usual' part was a problem. Porcupine Tree only play a two-hour set, and there are other songs I'd prefer to hear (not necessarily 'better', just 'other'). Perhaps it's time to retire this tour regular.

Apart from that on the 'Deadwing' album, this was the best-yet arrangement of Lazarus*, one of my all-time favourite Porcupine Tree songs and one which SW's mother "actually likes". I'll have to hear an unofficial recording (which I happen to know was made, but which hasn't reached me yet) in order to pinpoint its attraction, but I think a greater role was given to the electric guitars, providing a less haunting but more immediately exciting feel. Wonderful.

As in April, Anesthetize* was sublime, but curiously it felt very long. With a running time of over seventeen minutes it is a long song, of course (a seventh of the entire concert – a seventh very well used), but this was the first time I really appreciated how long the high energy of the middle section is sustained and that the closing 'Water So Warm' section is itself fully 5½ minutes long. A marathon effort, both for the band and the audience.

Open Car isn't one of my favourite songs – the lead-in to the chorus and parts of the chorus itself are too 'generic pop-rock' for me – but it follows 'the beast' of 'Anesthetize' well. Sometimes one needs the undemanding pleasure of a little plain vanilla ice cream to appreciate a complex, heavy meal.

Dark Matter was a highlight of the concert for me. Perhaps because of its contrast with the heavier, more recent material and the fact I hadn't expected it (I almost mistook the intro for that of 'Russia On Ice', somehow), it stood out strongly, really holding my attention. I gained a new appreciation of the track, refreshing my interest in the whole 'Signify' album.

Blackest Eyes* has been a standard part of Porcupine Tree concerts since 2002, but unlike 'The Sound Of Muzak' it still feels fresh and I enjoyed it immensely. I fact, I think it's improved over the years, and prefer the vocal timings to those on the 'In Absentia' album.

This was the third rendition of Cheating the Polygraph that I'd heard. On the first occasion, when all the 'Fear of a Blank Planet' material had been unfamiliar, the then-unnamed 'Track 5' stood out as the weakest of the planned songs and I was glad it was dropped from the main album. When it reappeared on 'Nil Recurring', my immediate opinion was more favourable (apart from the overbearing drumming) but since September the slightly whiney vocals (not lyrics, vocals) have gradually dropped in my estimation. That impression was reinforced live, but the new arrangement highlighted something new to me: just how similar the heavier sections are to those of 'Anesthetize' and hence how, well, redundant. In short, this was probably my least favourite part of the set.

A Smart Kid had felt out-of-place in the April set, almost lacking in power compared to the 'Fear Of A Blank Planet' material, but not this time, either because the arrangement had been revised or because of the overall balance of tonight's setlist. It was particularly good to hear SW take the climactic solo himself, as I love the 'standard' version.

Though SW almost apologised for repeating parts of the April concert, the main set again finished with the final two tracks from 'Fear of a Blank Planet', Way Out Of Here* and Sleep Together. This tour is supposed to be promoting the album, which I particularly like, so I didn't exactly object. An excellent ending. Though they're approaching the end of a long tour and SW had said he was looking forward to a rest, I was impressed by the strength of his vocal delivery on 'Sleep Together'. His voice has certainly developed in recent years.

The band left the stage for a couple of minutes then returned for possibly the highlight of the concert for me: a ~9-minute version of 'The Sky Moves Sideways Phase 1' performed live in Manchester for the first time since 1999 and hence my first time ever, if we don't count unofficial recordings. At the time I thought SW performed the opening instrumental alone, the others having nothing to do (this was the only song of the concert during which Wes wasn't on-stage, presumably grabbing a Guinness), but in hindsight Richard must have been playing too (his contribution makes the song) and I doubt the percussion was prerecorded. The subsequent vocal section was electrifying, whilst the high-energy end was a reminder (as if that was needed) of how much I love the band's pre-2002 sound.

I quite like 'Trains' but I've never understood the level of fan adulation it attracts and as with 'The Sound Of Muzak', I wouldn't object to it being dropped from the live set for a while; somehow its familiarity meant it failed to fully hold my attention. The circumstances didn't help. As it was introduced, I received a strong impression that 'Trains' would be the final encore piece. Excellent – even though I had to leave at 22:55 to catch a train, it seemed I'd see the whole concert after all. It then occurred to me that that'd only work if I was already by the exit at the end of the song – I wouldn't be able to wait for ~1,700 people to filter out ahead of me. Hence, I was obliged to push through the crowd in the middle of the song (sorry, folks) then leave quickly (at precisely 22:55) as soon as the applause began and SW looked as if he was removing his guitar to finish.

Bad news: I've since discovered that there was another encore. Good news: it was 'Halo', one of the few Porcupine Tree songs I absolutely dislike and one I was actually glad to have missed – as the final encore at the concert in April, I'd thought it a disappointing way to end, and I much preferred to walk back to the station with 'Trains' in my immediate memory.

So, another wonderful concert (from both bands), and I can't wait for the next one. It's unclear when that'll be; 2008 is supposed to be a year off for Porcupine Tree and the only known releases are to be reissues and SW solo projects. However, SW did mention they'd be back late next year, which made little sense. There's certainly been no suggestion of new material to tour.

[Those wanting the review can stop reading now; the following bit is just for cyclists.]

Leaving Preston station at ~00:15, the ride home took longer than normal due to an annoying gusty headwind, reducing my average speed to 14.5 mph (23 km/h; 38 km/h max. speed) and meaning I wasn't home until ~02:00 (01:58, I think). In hindsight, that average isn't much lower than the more usual 16 mph (26 km/h) for this route and my bike computer says I was only moving for 1 hour 34', so Preston's numerous traffic lights must have been the main delay.
For my own future reference and anyone else considering cycling from Preston railway station to Moorlands, Lancaster, the precise(ish) distance is 22.75 miles (36.6 km) – 1.75 miles more than I'd thought, which explains why it's always felt like more than 21 miles! Two useful landmarks are the northernmost turn-off from the A6 to Garstang, at 12.1 miles and hence only slightly over 10 miles from Lancaster, and Junction 33 of the M6, at 16.6 miles – it's important to accept that one isn't 'nearly there' at that point, and over 5 miles remain ahead.

Today's highlight has been a Norwegian band (though one wouldn't know it from the music or vocals) called Gazpacho. As the name implies, it'd be reasonable, if uncharitable, to describe them as a clone of modern-era Marillion. In fact, I understand they supported Marillion's 2004 tour and release their albums on Marillion's 'Intact Records' label; I ordered their latest CD from Marillion's webstore. Somehow the similarity isn't a problem, and hints of Porcupine Tree or 'Kid A'-era Radiohead add to the attraction.

Okay, I wouldn't describe their music as earth-shatteringly wonderful, and I don't have a new favourite band, but they're certainly worth trying. Their website offers a few full-length album tracks for download in 192 kbps .mp3 format, and for the price of an e-mail address, one can download an audience recording of their live set supporting, yes, Marillion, in Paris in 2005. It's even possible to hear their entire back catalogue online (streamed), though that facility didn't work well for me.

"Play it loud with the lights off."

From the home page, select 'News' in the header menu. The text mentions the 'Everything' download from months ago, but not the new one. For that, select "click here for news, headlines and more". That page provides the download link, under the title 'Angels Walk Among Us'.

Previous downloads have been 'free but we'd welcome donations if you like them'. However, this one doesn't have an associated PayPal link, so I'm paying by promoting it (which is more than I can say about the band's website...).

However, I hadn't realised that these releases are scheduled for the same day as the 'In Rainbows' box set, and are alleged to be a spoiler tactic by the band's old label, Parlophone, which had been expecting to handle the 'In Rainbows' release.

Interesting. At first glance, the 'Radiohead Store' website seems to be from the band themselves, with their name in a previously-used font, the bear logo and a characteristic colour scheme, but on reflection, the site is too obvious and openly commercial for Radiohead: if it looks like a Radiohead website, it can't be a Radiohead website. There's also a telling statement that:

The 'most lavish packaging yet for a BC release' sounds like a nice bonus (a stereo CD and 5.1 DVD-A with a 36-page book and other inserts designed by Carl Glover, all in a hard box), but ultimately all I care about is the music, and I'm not pleased by a three-month delay for mere packaging.

[Update 22/12/07: Argh! A manufacturing fault has caused another delay, into February....]

[Update 06/02/07: Pre-orders are being taken by Headphone Dust, for despatch on or about 11 February.]

Quoted in the Financial Times, Bryce Edge of the band's management company said:

It was already known that 'In Rainbows' will be released on standard CD in 2008, but the FT provides an update: the album should be out in January, on one of the 'big four' multinational labels, and may contain further bonus material to drive the hook further into those already tempted by the mp3s. Having heard them, I'm not.

Not that this was some sort of loss-leader: sources quoted by Wired have attempted to assess the raw financial success of the download release, and come up with a figure of something like £3-5 million in the first week.

[Update 07/11/07: It seems that was optimistic, perhaps based on visitors to InRainbows.com, not necessarily the subset who went on to become customers. Further research suggests that 62% of downloaders paid no more than the 45p admin charge, and the average amount paid by those who did pay was £2.90.
The Guardian observes that that's well below the price of a CD or mainstream (i.e. iTunes) download. However, I don't find that part surprising. I certainly paid rather less than for a CD, as I never intended to buy the download instead of the later CD release, so paid a token amount now for a stopgap before paying the full amount for a CD later (then I heard it, and decided the download was more than enough, but that's a different matter). I doubt I was alone.]

Comprehensive review, based on one run-through of the 160 kbps mp3s: meh.

It's okay, but no more than that. Maybe it'll grow on me, but I can't say I've been especially impressed by Radiohead since 1997, and my immediate impression of this one is no different.

As Tim (who "made [his] excuses and left after 'Kid A', which [he] never managed to get into") says, it's not entirely fair to judge any progressive album from a single listen – like Tim, I "find anything remotely complex takes at least four or five listens before it starts to make any sense".

However, one can usually detect some points of attraction immediately, and one can readily compare new material to past releases. Like those post-1997 albums (including 'The Eraser'), which I think it strongly resembles, 'In Rainbows' is... okay. Inoffensive. If any of these tracks came on the radio, I wouldn't turn it off. Unfortunately, that's the full extent of my praise.

I doubt 'In Rainbows' would disappoint existing Radiohead fans, but more casual listeners like me might take some persuading. Maybe I would suddenly see the attraction if I forced myself to play it again and again, but, well, life's too short.

[Update 18/10/07: Fight Club is of much the same opinion.]

Unfortunately, his profile is a little too low for major distributors, and most of his back catalogue has been difficult to obtain. As Wes explains at his Myspace site he's driven by a need to create and perform: "for me to continue to create music, I have to know that people are hearing it.". At the end of August, he instituted a remarkable new policy, recently imitated by an obscure Oxford-based band called 'Radiohead'.

Wes' entire catalogue, featuring over fifty songs, is now available from his Myspace site as .mp3 downloads, on a 'pay what you want' basis. Apparently, he's happy for people to take the albums as entirely free downloads, on one condition:

This policy doesn't mean he's giving up on CDs, not least because there's still a considerable market for physical objects with artwork, and the sound quality of CD Audio vastly exceeds that of .mp3. Hence, CDs remain available for sale from Wes' main website, at concerts, and via major retailers who happen to stock his in-print albums. Any future albums will also be solely sold on CD and SNOCAP (commercial download) for an initial period after release, rather than being made available for free via the 'Share the Wes' programme immediately.

Personally, I already owned 'Chasing Monsters' and 'Shiver' on CD, so took the opportunity to download the foregoing one, 'The Emperor Falls'. It was certainly impressive enough to justify full payment, so I went one better: I bought the CD.
In my opinion, the major flaw in donating or buying directly from Wes is that though he'll receive greater financial benefit than if distributors and retailers take cuts too, he'll rapidly become invisible to the mainstream market. That's why, at least on this occasion, I bought 'The Emperor Falls' from Amazon, reasoning that increased sales there could boost industry awareness a little. Perhaps that doesn't particular matter, if word-of-mouth means the music will still reach those interested. Either alternative has advantages and disadvantages.

A month on, Wes has reported back with the result of his announcement: since 24 August, over 17,000 albums have been downloaded by old and new listeners all over the world. Excellent! Let's hope a significant proportion paid, but the main objective is clearly working.

Your turn. Download. Listen. Share the Wes.

It's available in two formats:

• A 'discbox' will contain a standard CD with the expected artwork and lyric booklets, plus a second CD of bonus material (songs & artwork), plus the album on 2 LPs, all in a hardback book & slipcase.
  This will cost £40 – if the inclusion of LPs and lavish packaging wasn't a clue, this is pretty much for fans only. Discboxes will be individually manufactured and won't be despatched until December, but purchasers will automatically receive the second option in the mean time:
• A download will contain the album tracks, without bonus material. I haven't been able to determine the file format, but I'd guess it's .mp3 rather than something lossless like .flac.
  This will cost... whatever you want to pay. Yes, really: you could obtain the latest Radiohead album for 1p (plus the basic online transaction cost, 45p).

It'd be easy to dismiss this as a marketing gimmick, and if it is, it's worked – of my normal news sources, the Guardian, the BBC and BoingBoing have mentioned it prominently.
Yet it is noteworthy that an acknowledged major-league band, supposedly one of those sustaining the mainstream record industry, is releasing an album via its own website and without the involvement of a record label, and treating potential purchasers as responsible individuals rather than as potential thieves.

Personally, I'm undecided. I suspect I'll pay a token amount for a download, merely as a stopgap until the CD is released properly. Then again, I've only listened to each of the post-'OK Computer' albums a handful of times, so I might pay a fair amount for a download and skip the CD.
I suppose I could just wait for the standard CD to appear at Amazon; I'm in no hurry.

I can't help thinking the causal aspect is a bit of a distraction from the core point: is one drawn to particular elements in music, irrespective of genre? It's not a matter of hearing 50s crooners or 60s jingly-jangly pop in childhood and therefore liking (or disliking – it follows that aversion could be predetermined too) those genres now. Rather, the suggestion is that one might be drawn to similar sounds, even in radically different contexts. Having acquired a predisposition for, say, resonant baritone voices, one might subsequently enjoy opera and sea shanties without noticing the link.

Disappointingly, it doesn't seem to be a topic of interest to commenters on the Guardian article, who tend to dismiss or misunderstand it. The only person who actually engages with the subject is Tim, whose response is expanded here.

As for common factors in my own taste... hmm, it's not easy, is it?

One is obvious: I seek downbeat, dark music, and am rapidly bored by upbeat, 'happy' music. If one can dance to it or sing along, it's unlikely to grab me. I'd better stress that's not a conscious decision or any form of snobbishness – I'm not denying some secret urge for the sake of appearences – 'dark' music genuinely grabs me, irrespective of whether its fashionable, and 'party' music just leaves me cold.
I was about to say "but I do like some high-energy trance". Ostensibly, that seems contradictory, but it isn't; now I think of it, the specific tracks I like tend to be slightly sinister, with a sense of contained menace. Nothing fluffy!

Beyond that, I'm struggling. Guitar-led music (electric and acoustic)? Strong, complex rhythms? I can think of a consistent dislike: shrill female vocals.

The only other preference I can think of is a little more abstract, being a context rather than a sound.
Putting the 'prog' vs. 'progressive' genre distinction to one side, I'm interested by music (of any genre, whether metal, disco, folk, or even 'prog') which progresses: I'm naturally drawn to the novel and extraordinary. That certainly doesn't mean I chase 'the latest big thing' (on the contrary, fashion is cyclical whereas I want the genuinely different) and I don't actively hunt for new music. It just happens!
Conversely, I have absolutely no interest in nostalgia. I know some people like certain music as a reminder of certain periods in their lives, and also like music which resembles music from those periods. I don't.

This seems to be straying from the central point, but it is relevant. If I hear a piece which resembles another, I'm less likely to enjoy it (I might; I'm just saying it's less likely), even if it contains the fundamental elements I supposedly favour. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does matter to me whether I've heard something before.
I must be a nightmare for marketers, as their tactic of 'if you liked x, you might like y' invariable fails, because 'x' already filled that niche in my taste.

It may be significant that I was brought up in a house without appreciable musical influences, and I had negligible interest in music until into my twenties. A radio rarely featured in my home environment, and even then it was Radio 4 (i.e. speech, not music). There was a gap of about seven years between my buying my first album and buying the second. In both cases, the music stood-out from everyday pop I'd previously experienced; I was drawn to its differentness.

My first (mistaken!) impression was... succinct: "That was dire." However, repeated listening and a little insight from the 'Making Of...' DVD which accompanies the special edition CD¹ have boosted my appreciation. I think the main problem was my own expectation of high-energy, accessible rock music (with more substance emerging with familiarity) comparable to 2003's excellent 'Field Of Crows' album. Though it's not the one I'd anticipated, I now think 'Thirteenth Star' is a reasonably strong album (though not one I necessarily like...). Perhaps I'm overstating, but its unexpected depth makes 'Field Of Crows' even seem a little superficial.

To expand that initial impression, at first I thought the music and lyrics were boring; 'been there, done that', and if you've heard one downbeat Fish song, this album would be all too familiar. From an artist who claims to be progressive, it seemed dreadfully stale. However, that was only the result of a single play-through and based on mistaken (inflated?) expectations. Hearing it again a few more times, and considering it on its own terms, I'm more impressed.
Uncharacteristically, I've taken a while to compose this review, returning to it several times over the weekend, between playing the album again several times. In that time, I've gone from "this is appalling" to "It's not his best" to "er... actually, it might be" and back to "don't be so wishful: it's not his best".
If this review has any purpose beyond spreading the word that Fish has a new album out², I hope it's a warning against preconceptions and an appeal to give the music, and especially the lyrics, more than one chance to penetrate.

It'd be naïve to ignore the context in which Fish wrote these lyrics, namely the departure of his fiance, Heather Findlay of 'prog' band 'Mostly Autumn', in late May 2007. This was another reason for my initial dislike. The material seemed too personal, and I have a strong aversion to people criticising ex-partners in public; I'd thought better of Fish. Yet that too was a flawed preconception, and it seems the album's concept was determined well before it was mirrored by real life.

There's a fine balance. I don't listen to music for mere transitory entertainment, 'just a bit of fun': I demand more substance. Yet nor do I seek discomfort, or to be unproductively reminded of unhappy times in my own life. If '13th Star' had been no more than an bitter declaration of Fish's grievances, I wouldn't have wanted to hear it. Though there are clearly raw emotions in the lyrics, framing them in a slightly abstract narrative somehow adds sufficient distance, and it feels like a fictional protagonist singing about a fictional lost love, not Derek singing about Heather. Whether that's strictly accurate is a different matter....

That pre-existing concept (yes, it's a concept album, but don't worry about it) still defines the basic structure, being the story of someone seeking love/fulfilment within the mundane cycle of everyday life, and failing; the protagonist is left looking for his 'thirteenth star' alone ('Misplaced Adulthood', anyone?). According to the 'Making Of...' DVD, ~80% of the lyrics were already completed by the time of the break-up, so the subject matter and direction apparently predate events and emotional responses they seem to document. An interview segment from April 2007 casually mentions an intended happy ending, so clearly the narrative arc was amended to incorporate Fish's strong feelings, but it's not the overt attack on Findlay that I'd thought (though read whatever you wish into the first line of '13th Star': "With a heart full of sky,..."). Apologies for doubting his integrity.
The only remaining uncomfortable moment is in the 'Fish TV' promo at the end of the 'Making Of...' DVD rather than on the album itself. A video clip of questionable relevance shows Fish singing 'Just Good Friends' to Findlay³: "what would you do if I went down on my knees to you...?" (which he did (twice), under Micklegate in York). I really wonder why he included that.

The music itself is a minor problem. As a non-instrumentalist, Fish is slightly dependent on his collaborators. When that was Mickey Simmonds on the early solo albums or Steven Wilson on 'Sunsets On Empire', it was fine, but this time his primary partner was bassist Steve Vantsis on his first ever writing project. Unfortunately, it shows: the music is competently workmanlike and enjoyable, but in places it's a little predictable, particularly in terms of song structure. I'm not really complaining, and '13th Star' is consistently preferable to, say, 'Fellini Days', but it doesn't particularly challenge the listener; it doesn't sparkle.

Naturally, the immediate highlights are the full-on 'rock' tracks, 'Openwater' (especially the verse keyboards), and 'Dark Star' played at a neighbour-rattling volume. In an earlier draft, I was going to name 'Where In The World' as the album's low point, the obligatory maudlin ballad to skip (there's one on every Fish album). Yet in context, it works, just not necessarily in isolation, which illustrates that '13th Star' is indeed an 'album' album: a coherent composition with an emotional curve rather than a bunch of unrelated individual songs.

In terms of technique, Mark Wilkinson's cover art may his best ever (though the booklet layout work still looks cursory, even amateurish), but the subject matter is disturbingly 'proggy' – angels sailing into a stormy sea, exaggerated starscapes, even a ****ing sea serpent. Dangerously Roger Dean-ish. I'm glad the special edition digipack comes in a plainer slipcase, but presumably the Wilkinson artwork will appear on the retail edition, and deter potential buyers who'll naturally question the album's apparent mainstream credibility.
Yes, I know genre pigeonholing is annoying and it shouldn't matter if journalists and mainstream rock fans falsely associate Fish with crappy retro 'prog' or 'neo-prog' acts, but this is marketing, and first impressions do matter. I loathe 'prog'. If my first exposure to Fish's career was seeing this artwork in a jewel case in HMV, I would not buy it. Simple as that.
Heh. I've just realised that I primarily associate the pictorial content with albums by second-rate 'neo-prog' bands, the artwork of which was very probably influenced by Mark Wilkinson's early work for Marillion and Fish! The original remains the best, but still, the association is unfortunate.

Two final, isolated thoughts:

• I don't have anything specific to say about it, but the beautiful production work by Calum Malcolm deserves especial mention.
• Why does '13th Star' (the song) begin with the intro to 'Sugar Mice'?

2: The special edition of '13th Star', featuring the CD in a three-panel digipack with a full-colour booklet and 'Making Of...' DVD, all within a decorative slipcase, is available now, solely from Fish's webstore and concerts. The standard retail edition is expected at the start of 2008.

3: It may be from the Berlin concert in October 2006, the last time they appeared together on stage.

Apparently so: at the time of writing, it's the lead item on the BBC News home page's 'ticker tape'.

Whatever; it's good to see Fish capturing a bit of publicity with the same shamelessness novelty as his former bandmates; he just happens to mention his imminent new album '13th Star' and tour, and there's a prominent link to the website (and hence webstore).

The hardcore fans' reactions seems to have been characteristically* OTT – 'grown men crying', and all that, but it is kind of cool that it happened in that very Market Square, in Aylesbury, the band's birthplace.

Incidentally, I haven't mentioned that there's a non-retail limited edition of '13th Star' exclusively available by pre-order from the webstore or from the merch stall at concerts. It's the CD album plus a 'Making Of...' DVD, in a digipack with slipcase and enhanced booklet. Order now for despatch in early September.

*: no, to be fair, that's Marillion freaks; Fish's fans are less scarily obsessive.
The forum thread at Marillion.com already runs to 27 pages of squabbling.

They've announced that they're working on ~80 minutes of new music for what is expected to be a 14-track double album provisionally entitled 'Paradigm Shift'.

Double album, eh? Kind of 'proggy'? NO.

The subject matter could be a slight concern:

There's no suggestion of a completion or release date, but they have said that they won't be rushing into a studio before supporting Porcupine Tree's European tour in the autumn, so several new songs are likely to be performed and refined live before they're recorded.

Actually, that's rather the point: I'd grown up with negligible real interest in music, so saying Maiden was a favourite is distinctly faint praise; it's more a matter of them having appeared on BBC Radio 1's 'Friday Night Rock Show' fairly frequently at the end of the Eighties, and my being able to find several of their albums in my local lending library. Still, it's undeniable that 'Live After Death' was the first LP I ever bought, and I think I bought (or copied... sorry) the entire back catalogue up to 1990's 'No Prayer For The Dying' on tapes. It's no coincidence that I went to university that year and lost interest in Maiden, being introduced to Queen, Bowie & Jethro Tull. Oh, and girls. ;)

I don't think I've heard a Maiden single song for over fifteen years, but a little late-Spring cleaning uncovered my tapes archive (aka a cardboard box I couldn't lift, so had to open) at the weekend, so whilst working at home yesterday, I played 'Piece Of Mind', 'Powerslave', 'Somewhere In Time' and 'No Prayer...' back-to-back. I'd almost lost the will to live by that point, but I noticed a couple of interesting moments in the hours of noise, so I am continuing with the other albums, if not quite so intensively.

It's remarkable that the music is utterly unfamiliar – it's as if I'm hearing it for the very first time, which may be an indication of how much attention I really paid in the Eighties. I've mentioned before that I have a good long-term memory for music I like, but evidently not this.
There's one marked exception: 'Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son'. Weird. 'Infinite Dreams', 'Can I Play With Madness' and the title track are startlingly familiar. I presume that was my favourite album; I'm almost tempted to pick up a cheap copy of the CD from eBay....

It's all so samey! I literally can't distinguish the songs; ten seconds from the middle of one could be from any other. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and I could make the same accusation of the Ozric Tentacles, but the difference is I particularly like the Ozrics' music, and each additional marginal variant is quite welcome. With Maiden... yawn.

Particularly on the earlier albums, it's clear the music built on 'traditional' rock'n'roll riffs and rhythms. The result was catchy and didn't seem to take itself too seriously, but one could say the same about Status Quo's vacuous pub rock, and nowadays I look for something a little more intellectually challenging – I don't need mere entertainment, to kill time enjoyably. That sounds as if I take myself too seriously, of course, but I just mean that I don't need aural wallpaper – if I'm not actively listening to music, I'm entirely happy with silence.
However, Maiden seemed to have evolved by 1990, and I can see the root of my later interest in (some!) progressive metal.

Please don't mistake my criticism: there's certainly no doubt that the punk-like simplistic repetitiveness was performed with a very high standard of musicianship, and was overlaid by more intricate 'prog' influences which presumably primed me for hearing the real thing later in the Nineties. I don't know much about the NWOBHM genre, but I suspect Maiden must have been quite progressive for the time. Maybe my underlying interests haven't changed that much, after all.

Another discovery is that I no longer like the late-twenties Bruce Dickinson's singing voice. I prefer metal vocalists to use their lower register rather than shriek; I quite like the death metal 'cookie monster' growl as an instrument, but shrillness irritates me. However, Dickinson's delivery had a further grating element: vibrato.

The less said about the distinctly cheesy, simplistic lyrics, the better....

Continuum is a collaboration between Steven Wilson (Bass Communion, Porcupine Tree, etc.) and Dirk Serries (vidnaObmana, Fear Falls Burning). For those unfamiliar with those projects, I'd better state that the content of their second album is dark ambient 'music'.
Ambient means it's composed of drones and processed samples. There's no melody or conventional structure, merely chord progressions and s-u-s-t-a-i-n-s. Where any conventional instruments are used, it's as individual notes prolonged for 5-10 minutes. Much of the attraction is in the texture, the atmosphere, the, well, ambience.
Dark means it's evocative of emptiness: windswept moors and abandoned factories, not flower-filled meadows and waves lapping on quiet beaches. New-Agey whalesong does not appear.
'Music' is in quotes because some might question whether ambient noise meets the definition of the word (I don't).

Still here?

There are only three pieces, 'Constructs IV-VI' (I-III are on the debut album), but the shortest is over 17 minutes long, giving an overall running time of almost an hour. However, I feel those are appropriate lengths to absorb as individual pieces, separately, rather than playing the whole album as a continuous experience.

Construct IV
One soon realises this album is going to be a lot less ethereal than 'Continuum'. A lot less. 'Drones and processing' are the expected components of dark ambient music, but Continuum have added electric and bass guitars, creating something approaching ambient metal. The pace is slow, suggesting the unstoppable ponderous encroachment of an oppressive weight. It's not party music!

Construct V
Very reminiscent of Bass Communion's 'Ghosts on Magnetic Tape', faux-EVP voices backed by a drone itself reminiscent of distant machinery, soon joined by additional layers of mechanistic electronic tones. Imagine walking alone through the vast turbine hall of a near-derelict power station, towards the sole remaining functional generator, with a disembodied voice whispering wordlessly in your ear, gradually drowned out by pipes 'singing' as they warm and the noise of the generator itself. Though the tones are purer and marginally more musical than raw mechanical noise, you get the idea.

Construct VI
Again, there's a sense of occupying a vast, derelict space; the beginning inspires thoughts of the wind through a disused factory's broken skylights. The organ-like electronic drones, accompanied by more heavy, fuzzy guitar drones, add to the sense of wandering alone through a deconsecrated cathedral of industry, the ghosts of machines gradually materialising from the darkness. Towards the end, it's as if the building itself is collapsing under the bass-rich vibration of the phantom machinery. Play it loud enough, and that mightn't be entirely fanciful.

I must stress that this isn't kiddie-goth music, wallowing in pretentious angst and self-pity. It's very, very dark, but not merely for effect and not in a melancholic, depressing sense; if anything it's a little sterile. In context, that's a good thing; one could interpret it as going beyond the futility of mortal emotion: everything dies, as exemplified by the majesty of large, empty spaces which were once hubs of intense activity, so why mope about it?

As with the first album (indeed, like most Bass Communion releases), a little more attention has been paid to the packaging than is usual. The CD comes in a DVD-format digipack designed by Lasse Hoile, with three postcards instead of a booklet (there's little to say about the musical production). The artwork is somewhat similar to Hoile's work on the first 'Blackfield' album: very dark processed photographs, predominently red (on black) and subtly degraded. This time the subject matter is coastal: seaweed holdfasts on rocks, pitted pebbles and a barnacle-encrusted whelk shell. The effect is of specimens from the collection of a macabre Edwardian gentleman scientist.

Again like the first album, 'Continuum 2' is a limited release, with only 2,000 copies available from Soleilmoon, Headphone Dust and vidnaObmana (collectively, not 2,000 each). The first album sold out fairly quickly, so if you're interested, order it now. You will not find it in your local record shop, nor at Amazon, etc. That said, 'Continuum' (a limited edition of 1,000 copies) was so popular that it was reissued on iTunes.

Four minutes and three seconds. Remember that. You've been warned.

The first album, 'Office of Strategic Influence', was sufficiently complex and non-standard to sustain interest – it's not mindless pop rock. However, there were beautifully catchy moments throughout. 'Free' doesn't achieve that balance so well, and fewer songs grabbed me from the very first time I heard them.

Some of the sampled material and the title of 'Office of Strategic Influence' (it refers to a post-9/11 propaganda agency established by the Pentagon to manage foreign perceptions of US policies) meant that the first album had a strong thematic feel; almost a consistent statement. 'Free' doesn't, and initially seems to be 'merely' a bunch of unrelated songs. That's not necessarily a problem, as the songs are rather good!

There's nothing as obviously dark as the debut album's 'ShutDOWN'.

The presence of Jim Matheos (of Fate's Warning) and, to a lesser extent Mike Portnoy (of Dream Theater), might over-emphasise the prog metal aspect of the project – it's there, in some sections of some songs, but on the whole this sounds a lot like Chroma Key with extra guitars. That's probably the main thing to emphasise to those who have heard the debut album: 'Office of Strategic Influence' could be considered to be an equal mix of Matheos' guitar-led prog metal and Moore's atmospheric keyboards-and-textures music, but 'Free' has greater emphasis on the latter.

This time, it's a little clearer that OSI is a two-man project: Kevin Moore and Jim Matheos are credited as composers, producers and lead musicians, with guest appearences (performance only) by others including Mike Portnoy and Joey Vera, who presumably weren't involved in the writing sessions and overall direction of the project.

Some songs seem a little repetitive, but on repeated listening, that seems to be for deliberate effect, and works well, particularly on 'Sure You Will'.

It may be a coincidence, but the second song, the title track, is one of the heaviest and comes across as an almost anthemic 'statement of intent', just as 'OSI', the title track of the first album, was sequenced second, and is one of that album's heaviest tracks.
Overall, the album isn't so full-on 'heavy' as its predecessor. Parts of 'Better' (the eighth song; I'm mentioning it here out of sequence) approach the same intensity, but it's not so in-yer-face, seeming a secondary accompaniment to the song rather than the dominant, driving element.

I may be imagining another structural similarity: The rhythm guitar accompaniment to 'Standby (Looks Like Rain)', the last track on 'Office...' sounds remarkably like that of 'Our Town', the last track on 'Free'. Listening to both albums together on shuffle, I misidentified one as the other for a moment.

Though I like them, the first two songs didn't immediately strike me as extraordinary, but 'Go' has it; within 20-30 seconds I thought it was great, and I like the way it developed. The syncopated vocals really grabbed me, as a very Chroma Key element.
There's a strange vocal rhythm, but it really works.

All Gone Now: another 'heavier' one, using the same 'almost repetitive' style as 'Sure You Will'. It's okay, but I'm afraid it doesn't hold my attention.

Somehow, I don't associate OSI or Chroma Key with wistfulness or sentiment, so 'Home Was Good' is a little different. Otherwise, it could be a Chroma Key song – voice, keyboards, ambient textures and some semi-acoustic guitar. Though one of my immediate favourites, it hasn't grown as much as others.

'Bigger Wave' is very OSI, consistent with the first album.

I particularly like the simmering, almost menacing rhythm of 'Kicking'; there are a couple of particularly nice chord changes, too. The first few times I heard it, I thought it slightly over-long, but somehow that feeling has diminished. It could almost be a good single. Imagine that.

'Simple Life': Er. Nothing to say about this one!

The intro to 'Once' could be the Ozric Tentacles, though with a little too mechanistic a feel for those hippies. The track proceeds in the same style, reminiscent of industrial processes or the operation of monolithic bureaucracy – apt for an Office of Strategic Influence (or a Ministry of Information...). I also the overlapping vocals.

'Our Town': just acoustic guitar and voice, with a little electric guitar and a very nice banjo section.

So: I like it, and that has only increased with repeated listening. It's certainly one of my musical highlights of 2006. However, fewer 'Free' tracks have stuck in my mind than those from 'Office...', and I choose to play the latter far more frequently.

As with 'Office...' I bought the 'Special Edition' of 'Free', which included a further 20 minutes (okay, 19:25) of music on a bonus disc. As with 'Office...', it's okay, and if you happen to see the Limited Edition available for about the same price as the standard one, go for it, but don't make a special effort to find it or pay a premium price.

The bonus tracks make greater use of samples, especially sampled speech, than the main album. Except for 'Set It On Fire' and part of 'OSIdea 9', all percussion sounds programmed.

'OSIdea 9' is a heavy guitar instrumental, accompanied by programmed percussion and the sampled voice of someone claiming he's about to be extradited to the USA to be executed.

'Set It On Fire' is the only bonus track to sound like a completed OSI song. Moore is credited as writer, but there's quite a lot of heavy guitar accompaniment.

'Communicant' sounds like a completed instrumental, featuring keyboards, samples and percussion, with guitars only introduced in the final 30 seconds. It's slightly surprising, therefore, that it's a Matheos composition, not by Moore. It's good, but I agree with the decision to leave it off the album, as the sampled speech wouldn't have fitted the album's overall sound, if not theme.

'When You're Ready' is one of my favourite tracks on 'Office of Strategic Influence', but the inclusion of the demo (and why on this album?) is redundant. Apart from the lack of 'real' drums, it's near-identical to the finished version.

'Remain Calm' seems a self-indulgent opportunity for Moore (alone) to play with odd drum rhythms, directionless keyboard sustains and fragments of sampled speech. Experimentation is fine, but this is one Moore could have kept to himself. It's marginally better in distinct stereo e.g. via earphones, as the overlapping rhythms are a little more comprehensible.

The final track is an odd inclusion: 'Old War' is a 66-second song by Bige Akdeniz, who also contributed guitar and vocals; the only OSI contribution is a few seconds of percussion, presumably programmed by Moore.

At the unofficial Porcupine Tree Forum, one writer has a slightly different, very credible, interpretation:

Apart from the last sentence, of course. Ready availability of music doesn't necessarily diminish or trivialise it, and I can enjoy a CD fom Amazon just as much as one which has been annoyingly difficult to obtain.
More so, in some cases – some music is rightfully obscure.

I think this overlaps with the urge for exclusivity: to be a fan of a band no-one else knows, or to have an album no-one else owns; to be able to self-affirm that 'I'm special, me'. Kind of childish, really.

There's also something almost religious about the 'questing' urge and the thought that anything worthwhile needs to hard-won. And I'm atheist.
Seriously; there's more to atheism than being certain there's no 'higher being'; it's a world-view, with a distinct value-system independently developed by each individual. To me, it's not about living virtuously or deserving anything, and it's about the content of an album, not the means by which it was obtained.

[Via Tim.]

Two objections:

• This change "allows us to send out full HTML emails filled with links and images." Which I don't want. Text-only, please. Oh; that's not an option....
• In order to subscribe to the newsletter, one has to be a registered customer of the Racket Records web store, having provided full contact and financial details.

I'm familiar with Marillion's often-comically pushy marketing tactics, and don't especially object (not that I support the tactics – it's no accident that this entry doesn't link through), but this goes too far.
I'm not prepared to provide personal details in order to receive information they want me to see. They are the ones gaining from the proposed relationship, so if they have information they wish to convey, it's for them to accommodate my preferences – they don't get to define the hoops through which customers must jump. I'm willing to provide an e-mail address in return for accepting basic updates on the band's activities (by plaintext e-mail), but that's all – I decline to offer anything more than that e-mail address.

If that disqualifies me from the newsletter, it's their loss.

Queuing outside the venue, the audience seemed older and more predominantly male than usual, wearing a disconcerting number of retro 'prog' T-shirts. However, once inside, the hall soon filled with a wider range of people displaying preferable affiliations.

The doors opened on time at 19:30, and I went straight to the merchandise stand. I needn't have rushed, as Ade (Porcupine Tree drum tech & stallholder) seemed to have learned from last September, when tour T-shirts completely sold out within eight minutes, and there was plenty of stock. If anyone's interested, I bought the new tour T-shirt featuring a curiously low-res version of the 'Fear of a Blank Planet' cover image and a long sleeve shirt featuring the silhouette of an open hand (in the 'FoaBP' special edition's booklet, it's the image opposite the 'Anesthetize' part 3 ('Water so warm...') lyrics). Porcupine Tree are really grasping marketing opportunities at last, and Ade dropped a promotional postcard into the 'FoaBP' carrier bag.
Incidentally, don't wait to buy your copy of the new album at a concert, as neither the special edition of 'Fear of a Blank Planet' nor even the standard retail edition is being sold by the merchandise stall. This is because the band and label wish to maximise initial sales via mainstream, chart-registered retailers.

In the remaining ~20 minutes before the concert began, it was great to meet Simon 'Carbon Nation' Clarke in person, and meet ex-Lancastrian Adam again, but putting faces to online identities is always difficult, and two others vanished into the crowd before I registered that I recognised them from photos.

The venue was smaller than I'd expected; more of a club with a bar area and dance floor than solely a concert hall. I was told the capacity was around 1,200, and I don't think it completely filled, so the one-off move from the Manchester Academy (capacity 1,700-1,800) may have deterred some.
One advantage was that the room was on two levels, offering people at the back a better view than at the one-level Academy. That also seemed to spread the crowd slightly, and I easily found myself only seven 'rows' back from the stage by the time Porcupine Tree came on (I usually stand well back, 15-20 'rows' away, near the mixing desk to avoid the crowd and appreciate optimum sound).
For those planning to visit in future, the 53° is a 10-15 min walk from Fishergate (Preston's main shopping street) and the railway station, and there's a car park right by the venue.

I've mentioned before that I don't like the custom of including support bands in concerts, but for once Porcupine Tree were accompanied by a band I already like, Amplifier. In fact, after OSI's 'Office of Strategic Influence', 'Amplifier' was probably my favourite album of 2003 (though I didn't discover it until late 2004), markedly ahead of Porcupine Tree's 'In Absentia'.
It made a change to be very familiar with the support band's music, though I admit I couldn't name the opening instrumental until playing 'Insider' again this morning. Only two songs were from that second album, with the remainder being obvious choices from the eponymous debut album. Amusingly, I was able to predict which they'd be, in almost exactly the right order:
Gustav's Arrival
O Fortuna
Motorhead
Panzer
Old Movies
Airborne

So far as I could tell, the playing was excellent, remaining quite close to the studio arrangements, if abbreviated. So far as I could tell. Unfortunately, the sound quality was... sub-optimal. Amplifer's music incorporates considerable controlled feedback, but the further distortion introduced by the band's amps and mixing desk (they didn't use Porcupine Tree's) resulted in rather muddy and out-of-balance sound. At a few moments I was appreciating the memory of the album versions, as the live renditions were indistinct. I suspect those less familiar with how the music should sound received a poor first impression. That's a pity, and I recommend giving them a second chance.

Amplifier played from 20:00 for forty minutes, so there was a twenty-minute interval before Porcupine Tree were expected. Some headed for the bar, but I took the opportunity to edge forward a little, towards the middle of the stage. I'd provided a vague description of myself at the unofficial Porcupine Tree forum, which was adequate for one of my new neighbours to recognise me – hi, Steve (who introduced me to his friend as 'a man from the Internet', as if I'd just downloaded to the venue).

The lights dimmed at 21:05, but it was a further five minutes before the band came on, causing me slight anxiety about abbreviating the set to meet a 23:00 curfew. I needn't have worried; the full set was played.

The sound was excellent – perhaps the best I've heard at a concert. It was loud, but extremely clear. Last September's mix had been far too bass-rich, which battered the crowd in a way which was interesting in itself (I thought the 'wall of industrial noise' effect was great) but which distorted the music. This time, every element was crystal-clear without compromising raw power, allowing the effective use of stereo, er, effects in places. Well done. It makes a tremendous difference to be able to appreciate the subtleties of the final song with as clear hearing as during the first. This may be the first rock concert I've left without my ears ringing.

I don't particularly like back-projected videos at concerts; I don't want someone else's interpretation of the music to distract from my own enjoyment, and the whole point of attending is to see the band perform for real, live, in front of me, not to watch something pre-recorded. Perhaps unfortunately, then, eight (indicated with asterices, below) of the sixteen pieces played had video accompaniment.
Two, from 'In Absentia', used the projections from that tour: abstract assemblages of Lasse Hoile images which were atmospheric without attempting to directly illustrate the lyrical content. Two more, from 'Deadwing', were similarly fairly abstract animations (both are provided for home-viewing on the 'Arriving Somewhere...' DVD). All were easy to ignore.
That leaves four new projections accompanying songs from 'Fear of a Blank Planet'. These were rather different, being more like 'proper' music videos for broadcast than mere concert accompaniments. Stylistically similar to the album booklet artwork and still images on the special edition DVD, they seemed to be relevant to the lyrical content, without offering an outright narrative. In a way, I welcomed them as, if they genuinely illustrate the meanings intended by Steven Wilson (SW), they helped me understand the songs. However, I wasn't there to watch TV, so kept my attention on the band as much as I was able.

Aside from the entire new album, Porcupine Tree played one song from 'Signify' (1996), two (two of my all-time favourite Porcupine Tree songs, in fact) from 'Stupid Dream' (1999), one from 'Lightbulb Sun' (2000), three from 'In Absentia' (2002) and three from 'Deadwing' (2005).
That's not quite what I'd expected; recent tours have featured new material, a significant amount from the post-2002 albums, and very little from the older back catalogue. Last September, they played the new material, eight 2002-2005 songs and only one from 1993-2000; I'd expected much the same again, so was very pleasantly surprised (when I read Wednesday's setlist – I didn't arrive at this concert 'cold'). Apart from the final encore, I wouldn't have changed anything.

As usual for a Porcupine Tree concert, the audience were still and attentive – some might say static. A few tried headbanging to complex rhythms, which looked foolish, but otherwise movement was limited to a little head-nodding and foot-tapping. In writing, that sounds awfully sedate, but somehow it wasn't, and I wouldn't have wanted it otherwise – it's a concert, not a party – and there's no question that the audience were fully appreciative. One group behind me was rather... chatty, but beyond being aware of them, I wasn't particularly distracted.

I don't think I'd previously appreciated the full extent of Richard Barbieri's role in live performances. He played keyboards, of course, and his soundscapes both underpinned and rounded-out the overall sound, but there were moments when I realised neither Gavin nor Colin Edwin were playing at all. Conversely, particularly during heavier sections of the new material, SW and John Wesley (Wes) were effectively playing rhythm beneath Richard's lead.

I've said before that I think Gavin Harrison's drumming has been too high in the mix of studio recordings since he joined the band in 2002, so I'd better clarify something I realised during the concert. It's the snares which have been too dominant in the mix of songs from 'In Absentia' and 'Deadwing', but I really appreciated the contribution his bass drum made in propelling the rhythm tonight. I'm no musician, so apologise if I'm misusing the terminology; I mean the 'harsher', 'bright'-sounding percussion has been too clear in the past, whereas I'd overlooked his 'deeper'-sounding drumming.

Though there were times when he had nothing to do, I was struck by how comfortable Wes looked on stage – he's not a stereotypical guitar hero, but in his quiet way, he's a consummate pro.

So; the songs themselves:

Intro
This pre-recorded piece was only played briefly as the band came on stage rather than as an extended lead-in beforehand. As such, my mind was elsewhere and I didn't give it much attention; I initially thought it was familiar, perhaps 'Revenant', but I've since checked, and it was an unnamed ambient piece.

Fear Of A Blank Planet*
I don't remember, and haven't heard an unofficial recording yet, but I presume this was the then-unnamed piece which opened concerts on the preview tour last year. Somehow it didn't have the same initial kick of raw power as I recalled, which made me wonder whether I'd view all of the 'Fear of a Blank Planet' material so differently now it's more familiar. I still enjoyed it, of course, and was uncontrollably grinning within moments.
The back-projected video had briefly been shown on the band's MySpace site, but had been temporarily withdrawn following the Virginia Tech murders last week. Now I've seen it, I can certainly understand why, as children with handguns, some shown in a school environment, was a little too close to truth.

Lightbulb Sun
It was wonderful to hear this live, not least because I hadn't attended any concerts on the 2000 tour, when it was last performed. Unexpectedly (by me), SW played a rather (visually) attractive acoustic guitar whilst Wes played the electric parts, which meant he took the solo. That was excellent: extended, and distinctly his own rather than a clone of SW's style.

My Ashes*
I think this was the first time SW spoke, greeting the crowd and saying that they'd play the whole new album interspersed by songs from the back catalogue "that we haven't played before" [pause; shocked exchange of glances between Steve & I ] "...at least not with this lineup." [*******!]
Again, I was surprised by Wes' central role in the live rendition: he sang the entire choruses, rather than simply backing SW. I'm not sure why. I don't think it added anything special, and it was slightly distracting to hear material I'm still assimilating in his accent and higher vocal register.
This video depicted fragmentary images of young childhood, which suggested to me that the song could be about a member of the 'blank generation' recalling happy, more innocent earlier life.

Anesthetize
SW introduced 'Anesthetize' by saying it's "a pretty hard one to play though not the hardest one on the record to play; more of that later". I thought that meant he'd later state which is most difficult, but he didn't.
Wow. I'd had some doubts about this song on the album, but suddenly I really 'got' it – it was sublime, especially the middle section. My highlight of an already wonderful evening.
The Alex Lifeson solo in the first section was played by Wes. I'm afraid the original was better; Wes' version seemed to lack direction.
Hearing it live reinforced my impression that this is really two distinct songs artificially forced together. The end of the second section felt like the natural end of the song, and received corresponding applause (which I joined, as it was deserved!), whereas applause after the third section felt like a formality.

Open Car
Not my favourite track, from not my favourite album, but it worked very well in the live setting, and was a good choice after an extended period of music unfamiliar to anyone who didn't already have the new album.

Gravity Eyelids*
Perhaps foolishly, I hadn't realised that the first third of the song is a duet between SW and Richard Barbieri. Until the second verse, the drums were played from tape (reproducing the filtered sound of the studio version), but I'm not sure why the bass was pre-recorded too – it's not as if Colin Edwin was doing something else at the time.

Drown With Me
SW introduced this by explaining the band had recorded but left certain songs off albums, then regretted doing so. The example he cited was 'Stars Die' which, for a fraction of a second, implied they were about to play it. However, that's practically impossible (too many layered vocals) and he went on to announce this b-side from the 'In Absentia' sessions. I'd hoped and expected it to be 'Half-Light', an outtake from 'Deadwing' which had been in the Glasgow set two nights ago, but 'Drown With Me' was okay too.
Like 'Stars Die', the studio version of 'Drown With Me' makes extensive use of overlapping vocals which couldn't be reproduced live. However, the live band does have two vocalists and backing tapes could be made, so it was surprising to hear the whole effect stripped away; apart from during the title phrase itself, I don't think SW and Wes sang together even once. Unfamiliarity with this version may have affected my judgement, but I'm afraid those sections just sounded clumsy and unfinished.

Sentimental*
The video depicted an older teenager in cafés, on public transport, etc., which I interpreted as being about a member of the 'blank generation' growing up, entering the mundane adult life of work & commuting and being unable to engage with that either.

Blackest Eyes*
I must have been enjoying myself – it's not often that I feel an urge to (discreetly) sing along in public.

Sever
For several seconds, I didn't recognise this at all. It's distinctly different to the studio and 1997 live versions, with an unfamiliar drum rhythm. I'm looking forward to hearing it again on an unauthorised recording I happen to know was made, as I didn't really take it in at the time. I liked it, anyway.
One of the things I appreciate about Porcupine Tree is that they don't rest on their back catalogue, but I'd very much like to hear more mid-90s songs reinterpreted in this way.

A Smart Kid
I can't hear this song too often, so it almost goes without saying that I enjoyed it. However, it wasn't the highlight I'd expected it to be. Relative to the overall feel of the concert, it somewhat lacked power, and the normally stunning climactic guitar solo was slightly overshadowed by earlier pieces. It pains me to say it about one of my all-time favourites, but I think other songs could have been better choices within this setlist.

Way Out Of Here*
SW introduced this by saying the final two songs on the album are about escape.
I suspect this was the one they've been struggling to play live. Again, I'm no musician, and the playing seemed flawless to me, yet at one point (I think it was during this song), Richard and Colin abruptly looked at Gavin and grinned, so they must have spotted something I missed.
As soon as I saw the accompanying video, which depicts an attractive goth girl in a railway yard, I thought of a teenage member of the unofficial Porcupine Tree forum who was female, gothy and killed by a train in 2005. I've since discovered it was no coincidence.

Sleep Together
I must have been overwhelmed by this point, as I don't recall anything specific about it!

With that, the band left the stage for a couple of minutes, long enough for the road crew to remove SW's keyboard, then returned for the encore:

Even Less
This has been a staple of concerts since at least 1997 (yes, well before the release of 'Stupid Dream'), so I'd expected it to have been retired by now. Not that I'm complaining – it's always been my favourite Porcupine Tree song, so I was enraptured to hear it. That said, its stylistic difference to the current material didn't quite fit the mood of the evening (perhaps that's why it was in the encore rather than the main set) and, at least this time, I preferred 'Anesthetize'.

Mother & Child Divided*
Maybe I was tired, but this didn't excite me as much as it might; the same sort of material had already been covered stunningly in the main set, so this instrumental felt superfluous. I'm not really complaining; I just mean it was the least memorable part of the evening.

Halo*
Throughout the concert I'd been hearing familiar songs afresh and gaining a new appreciation, so I genuinely approached this with an open mind. However, it's no use; even with the new arrangement, I simply don't like this shallow, populist song. It's a pity that I couldn't fully appreciate the last opportunity of the evening to be a few metres from my musical 'heroes', as I'd already emotionally disengaged.

And that was it, until my next Porcupine Tree concert. I can't adequately express how much I enjoyed this one.
I'm afraid this review reveals the major deficiencies in my supposed writing ability. I have no problem being analytical and commenting on specific points, but I can't adequately convey my emotional responses to the concert: the excitement of being a few metres from the band (I certainly can't rationalise that), the exhilaration of being immersed in wonderful music played at high-volume,... I don't know; just the sheer ecstasy of the whole experience. I can't describe it, but it's the nearest an atheist can get to a nonexistent heaven (in public, anyway).

I couldn't have hoped for a better setlist, but a 'source close to the band' told me that the band rehearsed three hours of material before the tour – each night's set is about two hours long, so expect some variety as the tour proceeds. In fact, the cue sheets by the mixing & lighting desks suggested 'Trains' had been a possibility this evening.

I'm used to attending concerts in Manchester and Liverpool, so it was a pleasant change to not encounter ticket touts outside the venue beforehand nor bootleg T-shirt sellers afterwards. However, a couple of Roadrunner Records/Porcupine Tree street team members were present, distributing stickers to the departing audience. Let's hope they secured a few converts.

Actually, I haven't been playing it back-to-back all week (only nearly...). At a little under 51 minutes, it feels short, but it's intense; as soon as I'd finished hearing it for the first time, I wanted a rest, and didn't immediately start again as I might normally.

I could nit-pick, as there were a few tiny details I didn't particularly like, but they were only details and overwhelmingly this is exactly what I wanted from Porcupine Tree: intelligent hard rock with an immediacy which pulled me in from the start, but also a depth that can only develop as I enjoy it repeatedly. There's nothing at all like the execrable 'Shallow' on this album, and the whole composition exhibits a maturity I thought lacking last time.
I want to stress that: apart from minor details, I liked the entire album, from the very first time I heard it. Quite a starting point, which exceeds the patchy 'In Absentia' and 'Deadwing'. Those albums contain some of my favourite Porcupine Tree songs but also almost all of my least favourites, and both took a while to appreciate. Particularly on 'Deadwing', I thought certain songs were 'pop rock' with no greater depth than crowd-pleasing 'fun': "only rock'n'roll" – and I don't like that. 'Fear of a Blank Planet' goes further.

As I said in my review of the preview material at the 'Arriving Somewhere...' concert in Manchester last September, my impression was that this would be the 'heaviest' Porcupine Tree album yet; not so much 'metal' as 'relentless industrial wall of noise'. That seems to have been moderated somewhat, and the studio album isn't so much of an 'in yer face' aural assault.
I think I like that. There's still enough full-on material to satisfy fans of 'In Absentia' and 'Deadwing', and where it's 'heavy', it may be more intensely 'heavy' than ever, but there's also a return to the textured atmospherics of earlier albums. In its initial 'punch', 'Fear of a Blank Planet' may seem like a 'heavy' album, but in hindsight it's not, really. I couldn't offer a precise breakdown of the relative proportions of 'heavy' and 'not heavy' material, but it may be something like 1:3-1:4. The 'heavy' aspect merely grabs disproportionate attention, unsurprisingly.

The album's lyrical content relates to teenage disengagement from wider society. Great; good for them. I'm all for the breakdown of traditional family-orientated collectivism in favour of self-motivated secular individualism.
Actually, that's not what's meant: it's about the 'blank generation': terminally bored 'hoodies' who disengage from the outside world altogether, retreating into an empty, instant-gratification cycle of computer games, prescription drugs and zombified mall wandering. Without wishing to convey a 'message', SW apparently seeks to draw attention to the tendency to live vicariously through an ever-widening range of impersonal technology – mass-media, the internet and gadgets.
That subject is explored most transparently in the title song, but the specific meaning of subsequent songs' lyrics eludes me at present. That doesn't particularly worry me at this stage; frankly, I don't really listen to Porcupine Tree for the lyrics. In general, I get more enjoyment from the vocal rhythms than the words of a new album, and more from the images conveyed by individual lines than from any overall themes, which I might appreciate more as I become familiar with an album.
The topic was apparently inspired by Brett Easton Ellis' novel 'Lunar Park', but I haven't read that myself (yet) and the synopsis I have seen didn't reveal an apparent similarity.
I noticed in a Marillion forum that fans of that band consider this album rather 'cold', but how else could one treat the subject of emotional vacancy? I find this more compelling that wallowing in outpourings of melancholy.

I do have one criticism of the album, but it's of the personnel involved, not the creative content itself, so is relatively unimportant.
The album includes guest appearences from Alex Lifeson and Robert Fripp from Rush and King Crimson respectively, if not respectfully – I'm not an admirer, and featuring what music critics and potential album purchasers could regard as 'prog dinosaurs' was needlessly dangerous. I didn't exactly welcome the announcement that they'd be participating.
Even knowing which guitar solo was provided by Lifeson, I didn't regard it as noteworthy; SW could easily have composed something himself and denied lazy journalists the opportunity to dismissively liken Porcupine Tree to retro 'prog'... stuff. Fripp's contribution on 'Way Out of Here' was pleasant enough but again, not distinctive, and nothing SW couldn't have generated himself.
So why have guest appearences by 'name' musicians only of interest to old-time 'prog' fans, which have the very real potential to alienate more mainstream listeners and critics? It's a bad idea in terms of mass-market credibility, which succeeded musically only because the guests' contributions were unobtrusive to the point of being anonymous. I'd call that a pointless gimmick.

I don't have anything significant to say about every song. There's limited value in my repeatedly stating 'I like this one', and I'm not a musician/musicologist who could comment on technical issues, so I'll just offer a few specific notes. Let's take it as read that I think they're all great!

Fear of a Blank Planet
If any track is reminiscent of the 'Deadwing' album, it's 'Fear of a Blank Planet' itself. However, it's not merely an outtake or continuation, rapidly developing from a (maybe deliberately) familiar feel to exhibit greater depth.

My Ashes
As I said, I don't really understand the lyrics of specific songs yet, but if the video accompanying this song at concerts is an indication, it seems to be about the protagonist wistfully recalling the innocent idyll of early childhood: "life's all ****ed up now; I wish I'd appreciated it more then." Maybe.

This has a particularly rich, layered soundscape, so it's not entirely surprising that Richard Barbieri shares joint writer's credit with SW. I'm not especially keen on lavish orchestral strings in rock music. That's not a criticism, merely my preference, and at least they're real, having been played by the London Session Orchestra.

This is the shortest track, 5:07 long, but actually ends at 4:36, the remaining 30 seconds effectively being an intro to 'Anesthetize'. The track division could have been located differently, but I think the right decision was made.

Anesthetize
Yes, the title uses the US spelling, for some weird reason.

Surprisingly, this near- 18-minute compound song, affectionately known as 'The Beast' by those attending last year's preview tour, was my initial least favourite, though that impression was only temporary and relative ('less wonderful' is hardly savage criticism). This was partly because it seemed too repetitive, even rambling, in places, partly because the compilation of three distinct sections seemed somewhat artificial, and partly because I'd had very high expectations.
The initial impression I received in September, and which I unquestioningly assimilated, was that 'The Beast' 'blows away' 'Arriving Somewhere But Not Here' i.e. that I drastically preferred the highlight of 'Fear Of A Blank Planet' to the highlight of 'Deadwing'. Having heard the finished version, I'm less sure, but why would I? They're very different songs and it's not a competition. I like them both.

No matter how many times I hear it, I'm still convinced 'Anesthetize' is really two distinct songs forced together by a cross-fade and linking 'click track'. One is 12 minutes long in two different but complementary parts and, especially after hearing it live, is by far my favourite part of the album. The second is 4½ minutes long, and is fine, but seems musically unrelated to the first (apart from keyboards reminiscent of Pink Floyd's 'Echoes'). Ultimately, it doesn't make a difference if two separate songs happen to be indexed as one, especially as the album is intended to be heard as a coherent composition in the sequence provided, not a bunch of unrelated songs to be heard in isolation. I just wonder why it was done.

Sentimental
Again, if the back-projected video at concerts is an indication of SW's intended meaning, the lyrics seem to be about a member of the 'blank generation' growing up and trying to re-enter the establishment world of employment, commuting, and mundane adult life – and finding herself psychologically unable to do so. Again: maybe.
It's been noticed (and acknowledged by SW) that the riff at 3:52 and thereafter is the same as in live fan-favourite 'Trains', merely transposed to different chords. Now it's been pointed out, I hear it too, but I'm not entirely sure why it'd be an intentional back-reference, even though the first line of the next song, 'Way Out of Here' happens to be "Out at the train tracks...".

Way Out of Here
Er... 'I like this one'. Well, I do, even if I don't have anything to say about it here.
Okay: SW wrote all the lyrics on the album and all the music apart from 'My Ashes' and this song, which is credited as a collective band effort. Unlike 'My Ashes', I wouldn't have known by listening.

Sleep Together
Some have said this is the furthest from anything Porcupine Tree have done before, even a hint of a major change in direction on future albums (as if that sort of thing is so planned). I don't see it myself. Though swirling orchestral strings provide a 'Middle Eastern' feel slightly reminiscent of ELO or Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir', otherwise this is pure Porcupine Tree. It has quite a laid-back pace, but carries a brooding intensity, as if it could explode at any moment.
I could have done without the 'surprise' drumroll at the very end of the song and hence the album. It didn't seem to serve any purpose, and I'd have preferred it to end with the foregoing gentle fade, retaining rather than releasing the tension in the track.
Is it coincidental that much like 'Stop Swimming', the closing track of 'Stupid Dream', the lyrics of 'Sleep Together' could be readily interpreted as being about suicide?

As always, the album production was excellent, though for the first time, it was credited to the whole band rather than SW alone. This may explain two key differences to the foregoing two albums.
Since he joined the band, I've thought Gavin Harrison's drumming to be far too obtrusive on studio recordings, being much too dominant in the overall mix. This time, I wasn't aware of that even once.
Conversely, I was pleased that Richard Barbieri's keyboards & effects were more apparent. The combination of a driving guitar lead underpinned by a rich keyboards soundscape was what drew me to Porcupine Tree in the first place, so I'd been slightly disappointed by the (relative!) diminution of RB's role in the 'metal' 'In Absentia' and 'populist rock' 'Deadwing'; he's expressed dissatisfaction himself. He's back!

Aside from the production, I was also immediately impressed by the album's mastering (a different issue): not too loud, so there's room for dynamic subtlety and even on my very ordinary player there's negligible distortion at high volumes. It seems Porcupine Tree have stepped back from of the loudness war, presumably respecting the fact that their core market tends to be concerned about sound quality (consider the interest in high-resolution DVD-A technology, and criticism of compressed DVD-V), not to mention SW's own preferences. Notably, SW is credited as having mixed and mastered this album himself, whereas 'In Absentia' and 'Deadwing' were mastered by a third-party, Andy Van Dette, who evidently has more commercial 'everything louder than everything else' sensibilities.
To quote SW, interviewed by 'HDTV Etc.' magazine in 2005, if you want to hear it louder, "please use your volume knob".

Note that the album is deliberately not being sold by the band's web store at Burning Shed yet, nor from the merchandise stall at concerts on at least the UK part of the European tour, as the band wish initial purchasers to buy from chart-registered retailers. Once that promotional push subsides, Burning Shed should have copies, but they don't anticipate ever stocking the special edition, which was limited to 7,500 copies worldwide, all already accounted for – one by me.

Whilst the retail edition is a CD and standard booklet in a jewel case, the special edition comprises a CD, DVD and expanded 40-page booklet. The outer packaging, a thick card slipcase, contains:

• the CD and DVD in plastic sleeves, in a thinner card gatefold. The sleeves don't really fit into the gatefold, but that is nit-picking!
• a 40-page booklet containing the lyrics, album credits and extensive artwork. Like the slipcase and gatefold, the artwork features Lasse Hoile's characteristically downbeat photography laid out in the familiar Aleph style by Carl Glover. Lots of pills, empty landscapes, vacant teenagers and TVs tuned to dead channels.

Easily my album of the year (so far, though I'm not aware of release schedules being due to provide competition in 2007) and a very welcome antidote to Marillion's tired efforts.

[Update 22/04/07: 'Fear of a Blank Planet' reached no.31 in the UK album charts in its first week of release.]

[Interested in the live experience?]

I still think it's an album to appreciate alone in a darkened room, rather than sing along with in a sweaty concert venue with flashing lights (which sounds like a recommendation, but somehow isn't). If that's all this review conveys, perhaps it'll prevent others experiencing the same initial misconception as me, and perhaps they'll enjoy it more from the outset.

That may be the key point: the album failed to satisfy my expectations of it, which might have been unrealistic. I thought 'Marbles' was wonderful in 2004 (and still do); a return to form after a few patchy albums. I'd automatically presumed that 'Somewhere Else' would continue that reinvigoration, without even considering it might revert to something more comparible with the under-impressive previous output.

Even after a week, no single track stands-out as a highlight. Don't misunderstand: I'm not looking for the instant gratification of an empty pop song, and I'd probably recoil from anything a 17-year-old rock fan would consider 'awesome', but it's disappointing that not even one of these songs has, for want of a better phrase, the'wow!' factor.

There are times when I'll put a CD in my player just to hear one or two favourite tracks, even if I don't listen to the whole album. Up to now, every Marillion album has had, at the very least, a couple of highlights like that, but not this one. I quite like 'No Such Thing' and 'Somewhere Else', but I doubt I'd specifically seek them out in that way.
Of the other eight tracks, seven are... okay. I haven't felt the urge to skip them (yet), but they don't really hold my attention.
That leaves only one I actively dislike: 'The Last Century For Man'. I really, really don't need to hear this environmentalist hippie sh*t.

Overall, I'm not sure about the lyrics. I presume the intention was to go for 'simple but profound', but in a few places, the result borders merely trite. "He who dies with the most toys... / is still dead". Deep, or obvious?

So; not a classic, and I certainly don't have a new favourite Marillion album, but not disastrous either, despite my immediate reaction. It's simply... meh.

It's a brief extract from a lecture given to music students by Steven Wilson (Bass Communion, Porcupine Tree, Blackfield, etc.), filmed by Nana.co.il. In it, he expressed a few opinions about the music industry, being a musician rather than an entertainer, and Aviv Geffen (the other half of Blackfield). He also played a few songs. One request was for 'Cloudy Now', but SW couldn't recall the chord sequence – so he rang Aviv.

Imagine someone like David Gilmour doing that; pulling out his mobile phone on stage, in front of a screaming audience, to ask "Hey, Roger; how does 'Comfortably Numb' go?"

Marillion explain in a message that mightn't be archived, so I'll reproduce it in full:

Conversely, let's spread a little positive publicity: the Manchester Academy doesn't rip-off bands and fans in that way. Well done.

As I said in that earlier Sigur Rós entry, I consider it better to buy merchandise from bands' own webstores, wherever possible, as I think that gives them the greatest financial benefit.

Initially, there's merely a countdown to the US release date (23 April; the UK/European release date is a week earlier, 16 April), a 6-min medley of low-res samples¹ and an opportunity to sign up for spam updates, but hopefully it'll become as substantial as the 'Deadwing' minisite² (i.e. not very informative, but a good taster).

1: A rather clearer copy of the same same medley is currently downloadable from the band's MySpace page.

[Update 30 March: the site has been updated, with the features one would expect: tour dates, icon/wallpaper downloads, a link to the main site and... something more if you can find the clickable hotspot.]

2: [Update 22/10/07: the Deadwing.com domain expired on 23/09/07.]

I was slightly mistaken in calling her 'an obscure pianist', as she was moderately well-known in the 1950s and 60s, but retired from public performance in the 1970s having been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. From then on she was indeed little-known until 2003 when her husband's label released a CD then, before her death in 2006, a further 103 – 104 CDs in three years – supposedly of her recording career since 1989. This was a period when she was seriously ill, undergoing major surgery on multiple occasions and being hospitalised 68 times in her final decade. Even before there was serious reason to doubt it, people questioned her 'superhuman' energy. Some also questioned whether a single pianist could cover the sheer range of her supposed repertoire with such virtuosity.

Following the initial identification of her recording of Liszt's 12 'Transcendental Études' as actually being by László Simon, 26 more Hatto CDs (and counting) have been verified as er, 'misattributed' (e.g. Chopin's Mazurkas). The New York Times suggests all 104 might be plagiarised. Even the conductor cited for each of 'her' concerto recordings seems to be fictitious.

[Update 27/02/07: Of course, as soon as I posted that, more news broke. The husband seems to have confessed.]

Gramophone, partly acknowledging that it had been fooled too, reports that acclaimed recordings of an obscure pianist have been proven to actually be previously-available recordings of entirely different pianists. The detailed analysis was performed by specialist software and experts, but the initial identification was by standard, domestic player software.

[Further information.]

It's likely that most listeners approaching this album afresh (apart from those in Israel) will be Porcupine Tree fans who have never heard of Aviv Geffen. If only for those people, I could describe the Blackfield project as resembling the softer, melodic side of Porcupine Tree; in those terms it's most similar to the 'Stupid Dream'/'Lightbulb Sun' era (and near-totally dissimilar to the 'In Absentia'-'Fear Of A Blank Planet' hard-rock/metal era!). Geffen's unique compositional contribution is in adding an overtly 'pop rock' feel under-represented in SW's other work.
Totally unlike Porcupine Tree music, most tracks on 'Blackfield II' are around four minutes long, though one is just under 3 mins and the longest is 5:13. Though they share a common feel of melancholia (near-suicidal despair in a couple of instances), there isn't an overall theme, and these are ten standalone songs.

Fans drawn to the 'progressive (not 'prog') rock' or 'metal' side of Porcupine Tree have expressed slight disappointment with 'Blackfield II', particularly with the, er, less-than-challenging lyrics. It's probably important to know what one is getting: this is a 'pop-rock' project, and by the standards of the genre, it's above average. Besides, the music easily compensates for the lyrics.
I can't comment on Geffen's other music, but this is about as 'pop' as SW gets. I can't deny preferring slightly less predictable, more challenging material too, but I do like the album. Not even one track feels weak, and I don't feel an urge to skip even one.

Even more than on 'Blackfield', the most obvious performer is SW, though Geffen seems to have been the primary composer. SW wrote (music and lyrics) three* of the ten songs, Geffen wrote five, and the remaining two⁺ are 'music Geffen, lyrics Geffen/SW'. SW is the lead vocalist on 6 tracks, Geffen on one and they share lead vocals on on three. That, plus the fact that the vocals are lower in the overall mix, which takes the edge off any vocal idiosyncrasies, means that Geffen's relatively strongly-accented, annoyingly quavering voice is less apparent. Sorry, Geffen fans, but I think that works very well.

A couple of people have suggested the album is overproduced, but I don't agree at all. Compared to the stark 'Blackfield', 'Blackfield II' could be described as 'lush', but I like the densely layered soundscape a lot and don't recognise any reason to criticise. The first album probably established expectations of a simpler sound, but if one can get past that preconception (and I can without hesitation), multiple overdubs sound great. Admittedly, the electronic effects on '1,000 People' grab one's attention more than I might have chosen, and 'Miss U' and 'Where Is My Love?' sound a little 'busy', but I actually welcome the relative diminution of the vocals on those two tracks. Initially, I was a little concerned by the frequent use of what I thought was sampled strings, but they're played by a real ensemble, the Downtown Session Orchestra. Not that I quite understand why it matters that they're 'real' – for me, music is about the result, not the process.

Unmistakably the product of the same band, this is a slightly richer experience, which I expect to hold my attention longer. Much as I like the debut album, after the first month or so I've only played it rarely.

[Update 05/12/07: Wrong – I tired of this album very rapidly and haven't played it for months, but I've returned to the first album a few times.]

So; a few thoughts about the individual tracks. Overstating slightly, I could be described as a professional editor, so I'm naturally inclined to spot negative points, which may make my comments seem negative. Please bear in mind that I do like all these songs!

The intro/verse riff of 'Once' *: is extremely familiar – distractingly so, though I can't quite identify where I've heard it before. One almost expects to hear a different voice than SW's.
I want to stress that I do like this, an enjoyable pop-rock song, but it's not exactly groundbreaking. I could imagine it doing well in the pop charts, if it wasn't a little too generic. A quick survey at the Porcupine Tree Forum found a wide range of individual favourite tracks, but not one person ranked 'Once' as the single 'best' song.
Incidentally, it seems a little perverse that a song called 'Once' is being played twice at each of at least the first few concerts on the 2007 tour.

'1,000 People' ⁺ is about a pop star's inability to respond to fan adulation. It's a theme other lyricists have covered, and Geffen doesn't say anything new on the subject. I'm assured this is just a slightly inadequate translation of Geffen's original Hebrew lyrics, but that isn't exactly relevant: this rendition has to stand alone. And, in my opinion, it does. Even discounting the words themselves, the interaction of the vocal rhythm and instrumental music is compelling. The French horn, played by Itamar Leshem, is a well-chosen addition.
Speaking of individual favourite songs, this is SW's, apparently.

'Miss U' is the first song to feature Geffen as lead vocalist (the only one on which he takes the lead alone); in fact the first point at which I noticed his distinctive voice at all. The song is very similar to material on the debut album. Apart from the guitar solo/lead out, it's also rather repetitive and perhaps my least favourite track.

'Christenings' * is something of an oddity. It was written and demo'd as a potential Porcupine Tree song during the 'Deadwing' sessions. I'd thought SW had contributed the song to the Blackfield project to be recorded by this band, much like the debut album featured a number of Blackfield renditions of songs previously released by Geffen. Not this time: this is the Porcupine Tree recording, featuring SW, Richard Barbieri and Gavin Harrison (I'm not sure who played bass; perhaps Blackfield's Seffy Efrati, perhaps SW). Weird.
My initial thought was that it was better suited to a Blackfield album, as it's too overtly 'poppy' for Porcupine Tree, but it doesn't really have a Blackfield feel either.
It's inspired by Syd Barrett, apparently, but isn't specifically about him, having been generalised to refer to a generic has-been pop star. Pretty good, but not a highlight of the album.

SW's is the only voice clearly apparent in 'This Killer' (that could be said about most of the album, really), but I suppose Geffen is in the nice harmonies in this nice, melodic song. I'm afraid that's also a slight criticism: I don't really go for 'nice'. The result is pleasant enough, but undemanding. The clichéd 'twist in the tail' of the lyrics doesn't help.

'Epidemic' ⁺ is excellent; possibly my favourite track. Oddly, this five-minute song feels like the distillation of a far longer, structured piece, an impression heightened by a hint – only a hint – of Porcupine Tree-style metal-inspired guitar, which itself adds energy and a great sense of menace.
The brief inclusion of a female backing singer (Daniella Pick) near the end is another of the small yet valuable details which I regard as immensely beneficial to the overall result, and which others seem to regard as overproduction.

Something about 'My Gift Of Silence' * grabs me as being more creative than the others, displaying both a complexity and subtlety slightly lacking in other, generically 'poppy' tracks.
I genuinely wrote that sentence 'blind', before checking the album credits and discovering it's a SW composition (music and lyrics). Whatever; it's excellent.

Somehow, the first half of 'Some Day' reminds me of SW's cover version of Abba's 'The Day Before You Came'. Perhaps that's partly why the percussion in the middle section seems misplaced, clashing with the lyrical content and other instruments. Then again, that characteristic is shared by a couple of songs on 'Blackfield'.

'Where Is My Love?' was a bonus track on the European edition of 'Blackfield'. I didn't like it there (and my dislike has increased with time), for its over-sentimental content, repetitiveness and SW's odd vocal delivery (slurred 'r's). This is considerably better, with vocals lower in a richer (denser and more varied) instrumental mix. Shock, horror: I actually like it a lot, especially the guitar-led second half.

That there's a REM track with a similar title to End Of The World is coincidental, but repetition of that line in the chorus in this song is slightly reminiscent of the REM one too. However, that's only an initial impression, and the strength of the Blackfield song soon drives out the comparison. I can imagine this somewhat anthemic track becoming a popular encore piece.
The first few times I played the album, the songs weren't familiar enough for instant recognition, but each time I reached the chorus of this one and suddenly recognised it, I couldn't help grinning in anticipation – I loved it immediately.

That's ten tracks, giving a running time of 42½ minutes compared to 37 for the debut album. 'Blackfield' felt short, but this feels like a decent length, certainly within the range of traditional mainstream albums.

Oh; and for those who discovered this review whilst searching for 'blackfield II lyrics', they're in the CD booklet. At the time of writing, they're only available in the CD booklet, not online. I don't know whether that's deliberate, giving people a reason to buy the CD rather than download.

Their fourteenth studio album (tenth since Fish left in 1988, if anyone was a little out of touch...), 'Somewhere Else' is released on 9 April and like 'Blackfield II', it's now available for pre-order. However, unlike 'Blackfield II', 'Somewhere Else' will not be available from the band's official website until after the release date. To be absolutely clear: one cannot pre-order from Marillion.com.

Instead, Marillion have arranged for pre-orders to go through Townsend Records, a chart-registered retailer. The 'Marbles' singles did remarkably well in 2004, so it's unsurprising that the band would want to try for a concerted impact on the more significant UK album charts. I suspect that an exclusive deal with Townsend might be mutually-beneficial in terms of the band's cut of profits, too).

Hard-core fans (and Marillion Freaks define 'hard-core fandom') will sign up simply to support the band, but those needing further persuasion might be interested to know that Townsend is offering an exclusive DVD containing three 'Somewhere Else' tracks recorded live at the Marillion Weekend 2007 (this coming weekend, in fact). The CD+DVD edition actually costs £2 more than the standard retail edition (one can pre-order either), but it won't be available from other sources, apparently.

Blown speakers in his studio are being replaced and the mixing desk is about to be rewired 'in the coming weeks', so that's okay....

In case anyone (who's interested) doesn't know, Blackfield is a 'melacholic pop' collaboration between Steven Wilson (SW - Bass Communion, IEM, Porcupine Tree, et al.) and Aviv Geffen (Israeli pop star). See my reviews of the debut album for more information.
[Update 17:02/07: 'Blackfield II' is reviewed here.]

Pre-orders are being accepted by both Burning Shed and Headphone Dust. The album will be widely available from mainstream retailers, of course, but as SW says, purchases from BS or HD are of greater financial benefit to the artists.*
The former might be better for those ordering from outside the EU, as BS won't charge you UK VAT, apparently. However, the latter is offering a bonus item with pre-orders: a Lasse Hoile-designed postcard illustrating the lyrics to 'My Gift of Silence'. I'm so thrilled.... Actually, I know fans (lit: 'fanatics') who really would be excited.

*: Blackfield is possibly the most radio-friendly of SW's projects, and could even achieve chart success. Sales via major 'high street' retailers would count towards chart ranking, but neither BS nor HD are chart-registered. Boost the band's visibility or support their finances? It's a dilemma.

[Update 10/02/07: Those in the USA preferring to wait for the domestic release in March might like to consider pre-ordering from Newbury Comics. By special agreement, the first thousand albums pre-ordered will come with booklets signed by SW and Geffen.

As the NME said of the band: "Blows your trousers off!"

This excited certain completists, but I was a little disparaging: it's a DRM'd, restricted-resolution download, which inherently wouldn't interest me, and it's 'Shallow', a trashy pop-rock track which I'd have preferred to have been never released at all.

One response puzzled me:

Another person shared my lack of interest in downloads:

If it's about the music, I see no disadvantage in downloading. Download, uncompress, burn, enjoy.
If it's about the object, and the music doesn't matter to you as much as the shiny plastic disc in your hand, okay, there's a difference, but I genuinely don't understand why it matters. Remember, when there's no known plan to ever release the recording on CD, it's download or nothing.

It's interesting that this one topic drew out the two extremes of 'fandom'. At one end, there are those who'll buy anything, simply to possess every note and hiccough ever committed to recording. At the other, there are supposed fans who'd rather not hear the music at all than buy a release they can't physically fondle.

For example, here are books with 40% off the RRP, further sorted by reviews and 'bestselling' status. Use the 'Sort' option on the results page to find books in your chosen price range.

To save myself, and perhaps you, a little time, here are the direct links for the categories most relevant to me:

Books: 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
DVD: 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Music: 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%

You get the idea; I won't go on to itemise the other categories, but the same applies to 'Electronics & Photo', 'Gadgets', 'Home & Garden', 'PC & Video Games', 'Software', 'Toys & Kids' (Amazon sells goats?) and 'Travel'.

These links are to Amazon UK, of course; see 'Brand Name Coupons' for the Amazon US equivalents.

It now contains 2475 tracks (193 more than in June 2005) from 277 albums (29 more). Obviously I've deleted some tracks in order to fit in the additional material, but most were extremely long pieces (20-30 mins each), so there's been less changeover than simply addition; all the artists included in June 2005 are still represented by at least one track. I won't repeat the entire list (see the earlier entry for that), but these are the additions:

Anton Karas – the famous zither theme from 'The Third Man', ripped from the DVD.
Björk
Carter Burwell – Who? This is the 'Miller's Crossing' theme, again ripped from the DVD.
Centrozoon
Imogen Heap
Jeff Wayne
Martin Barre
Muse
Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment – not hippie sh*t, honest; it's Bach's 3rd Brandenburg Concerto.
Riverside
Robert Wyatt
Simon & Garfunkel
Snow Patrol
Symphony X – just three tracks from 'V', which is so overblown, it's hilarious. I rarely play these songs, but if I'm in a bad mood they can be relied upon to induce howls of laughter.
Sörskogen
The Verve
Thom Yorke

[Update 23/12/06: Thanks to Snafje's suggestion, two albums by The Gathering take the track count to 2504 on 283 albums (with a handful of other tracks by artists already listed).]

The underpromoted Amplifier are one of the best bands I've discovered in recent years. The high-energy yet intelligent hard rock of their eponymous 2003 album was a wonderful introduction, a high standard of musicianship underlying a refreshing playfulness. This was a rare case of substantial music also being just plain fun. It was also a rare example of a consistently high-quality album without weak filler tracks, though I'd isolate 'Airborne', 'Panzer' and 'UFOs' as especial highlights.
Highly recommended!

Their 2005 'EP' 'The Astronaut Dismantles HAL' was equally good (and 'EP' is understating what was really a 40-minute album). The first time I heard the intro to 'Everyday Combat' inspired pure joy; even just thinking of it, I'm grinning.
Also recommended!

So what happened? In a sense, 'Insider' is more of the same (which is a good thing), but there's something... missing. The playing is fine, and the deeply-layered, complex arrangements are undoubtably impressive, but the new material is rather 'samey' and lacks one of Amplifier's earlier strong points, catchiness, to the point of being inaccessible and unmemorable. Experimental technique is pointless unless the music is simply enjoyable. Don't misunderstand: I don't regard 'Insider' as awful, just not so stunning as its predecessors. It's almost as if Amplifier produced enough material for two albums, 'Amplifier' and 'Insider', but put all the excellent tracks on one and all the less-inspired filler, which would be perfectly adequate interspersed by stronger tracks, on the other.
With regret: not recommended.

I own rather more CDs than available shelf space, so I periodically move those of which I've tired into storage. I think I've played 'Insider' five or six times since I bought it four weeks ago (on the release date), but I'm afraid I've had enough, and it doesn't qualify for shelf space at all. Straight to storage. If I hadn't liked (and still like) the foregoing releases so much, I suspect it'd bypass storage too, and go straight to eBay. I'm hoping that I'll suddenly 'get' it when I play it again in a few months time, but I'm not hopeful, and my initial impression isn't much incentive to belabour the attempt.

Worth reading, it broadly restates (or at least overlaps) the endless 'prog'-or-progressive debate, mainly in the context of Marillion.

On the initial topic (e-mail groups vs. online fora), I definitely favour the latter, for one main reason: threads. For me, that's the 'killer app' of fora, with which e-mail lists can't compete. I drastically prefer to read the topics I choose, rather than an undifferentiated stream of all traffic.
I liked the pt-darkmatter Porcupine Tree Group at Yahoo!, but found that I gravitated to the PT Forum instead when that became available. The 'signal-to-noise' ratio is probably no different, and I suspect pt-darkmatter has slightly better-informed participants, but at the PT Forum I don't need to read anything off-topic (e.g. last night's US TV programmes), nor on-topic subjects that don't interest me (e.g. musicians' technical discussions).

[Via Tim.]

If music becomes popular, on its own merits, that's to be applauded, as I've explained before.

If music is contrived to appeal to a target demographic, sacrificing substance for mere ear candy in order to sell the 'product', that's cynical marketing, not art, and to be condemned.

Clear?

I wouldn't normally take especial notice of exact timings, but people have been asking about it in online discussion groups, so:

• 19:30: doors opened
• 20:03-20:35: Paatos – support set
• 21:03-21:55: Porcupine Tree – new set
• 22:00-22:46: Porcupine Tree – DVD set
• 23:00: Curfew, though I suspect they over-ran a little.

I dislike the very idea of support bands, so I'm afraid I wasn't particularly receptive to Paatos – I hadn't planned to attend their half-hour set at all, but since I was there it would have been churlish to ignore them. It was clear that they're an established, professional band with a well-developed sound of their own, and certainly not beginners delivering a jumble of testosterone-fueled derivativeness (what did happen to Porcupine Tree's 2003 support band, Adom, anyway? Who cares?). That said, I didn't especially like their material and I didn't think it supplemented Porcupine Tree especially well. The fact that Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson (SW) acted as producer on Paatos' 2004 album 'Kallocain' doesn't imply an especial compatibility.

Porcupine Tree's stage setup was fairly standard (bass & drums on the audience's right, second guitar and keyboards on the left, keyboards and drums on risers, lead guitar/vocals ranging across the middle of the stage), with one unexpected addition: a small keyboard was set up at the front for SW to use occasionally. He plays keyboards in the studio, of course, but it can't be much more than a year since the first time he played the piano live in a solo concert, and I think this is the first time with Porcupine Tree. It's a development I certainly welcome.

A screen was installed for projection behind the band, but I'm glad to say it was barely used: a Lasse Hoile film was shown briefly during the interval before the second set, something involving time lapse photography of cars and cloudscapes accompanied 'Arriving Somewhere But Not Here' and Przemysław Wszebor Bernacki's animation was shown during 'Start Of Something Beautiful'. Needless to say (again), I deliberately ignored them, particularly the latter. I was there to see the band, not watch a film, especially not one I could watch at home. I presume the 'Halo' film was used during the encore too, but I'd left by then.

The sound quality was... okay; pretty good by the standards of a typical rock concert but not as good as at the 2003 Porcupine Tree concert in the smaller Academy 2 venue next door (though that had the best live sound I've experienced). It was loud – very loud, which suited the new material perfectly but left me with hearing still appreciably impaired over twelve hours later. The bass was sensational, by which I mean it was felt as much as heard; I was frequently aware of my trousers vibrating against my legs and during the intro to the second Paatos song my glasses were moving on my face.
Partly because of the volume, there was some loss of separation of instruments, especially the bass and keyboards, and I couldn't clearly hear the new lyrics. There was some experimentation with stereo effects (Wes' guitar shifted from side to side during one new piece), but there wasn't sufficient clarity for album-style soundscapes or the surround-sound experience SW apparently intends to implement one day.
One odd consequence of the loud, bass-rich amplification was that in contrast, SW's voice occasionally sounded like that of a smurf. Rather distracting!

This was Porcupine Tree's first appearence in the larger Academy 1 venue. I stood further forward than I normally choose (about ten 'rows' back, rather than near the soundboard), so it was difficult to judge the size and density of the rear of the crowd, but it looked pretty full as I left before the encore, and if it means anything, my ticket, bought a couple of weeks beforehand, was no.1,438. I think the official capacity is around 1,750-1,800. There were definitely more people present than at the Marillion concert in the same venue two years ago (Marillion claimed that concert was sold-out, but having seen tonight's visibly larger audience, I now think that was empty hype).

From where I was standing, the audience seemed older and more predominantly male than I'd expected – I'd thought the post-2002 albums would have attracted a younger, more metal-orientated audience. Maybe they were at the front. There were some in their teens and early twenties, but I didn't spot many band t-shirts and a woman near me seemed dressed for a quiet night at a cricket club!
On the whole, the audience was still and attentive, especially for the first set, though there was greater audible & visible reaction during the second set of more familiar material, even more of a 'party' atmosphere (for those who appreciate that sort of thing...).
There was the usual inability to 'be in the moment' – people were taking photos throughout the first set, some into the second set, and one person rang a friend and held up the phone during 'The Sound of Muzak', right in front of my face – briefly.

SW spoke very little between songs – even less than usual, I think. He said 'hello' after the first song and explained the plan for the evening (then repeated it when the audience's response to the idea of a lot of brand new material wasn't as effusive as he'd wanted), he announced the five-minute break at the end of the first set and he spoke briefly before the final song of the second set, which was the only one he introduced by name. Otherwise, the band just played and the audience were left to recognise songs for ourselves.
One thing he did say, which worried me slightly, was that the preview material was being played both as rehearsal before recording the forthcoming album and to gauge audience responses. The latter is an awful idea. I really wouldn't want an 'obvious' crowd-pleasing album from Porcupine Tree (parts of 'Deadwing' were bad enough, in that respect), and I hope the band will produce the album they want, hopefully something which challenges the audience rather than merely satisfies customers' whims. That way lies disposable, vacuous Coldplay-style rubbish!

So; the new music.

The first set featured six tracks intended for the new album (not seven – a quiet section in the third song seems to have confused some people). Considering past albums have had running times of about an hour each, I may have heard most of the new one.
Oddly enough, I was reveling in just hearing the new material rather than analysing it and taking detailed notes, so I'm afraid I can't offer a meaningful review of individual pieces.

None of the new tracks have been given titles (at least publicly) and none were individually introduced. Nothing is known of the thematic content or overall direction, but if this is a true representation, it's going to be much more intensely heavy than its forerunners.
I'm afraid I don't know much about genre subtleties, but I'd describe the new 'heaviness' as more industrial than metal. There's a wonderful 'wall of noise' effect, overlaid by guitar & keyboard melodies and textures. The drums contribute a rapid mechanical heartbeat, which is an excellent base for ominous, threatening music, very different to the more upbeat rock of 'Deadwing'. It really is heavy, too – at least at high volume in a concert setting, this could be the heaviest Porcupine Tree yet.

I mean that individual tracks are intense, but not that the album will be an unrelenting onslaught. SW played keyboards (mainly a piano effect when the lead instrument and a mellotron effect as accompaniment elsewhere) and Wes provided vocal harmonies & backing on some of the preview songs which, though not exactly 'ballads', were closer to the old, downbeat material of 1999-2001. No, that's not quite right; they don't directly sound like songs from 'Stupid Dream', 'Lightbulb Sun' or 'Recordings', but are similar in overall feel, as opposed to anything on more recent albums.

My major criticism of the 'Deadwing' album was that some elements were too 'obvious' and populist. Some parts seemed oddly familiar, as if I'd heard them before without being able to identify specific sources; I think it's the overall feel that was too generic. Some of those riffs and choruses seemed written to instantly entertain without challenging the listener, even to boost marketability. Thankfully, the new material is a welcome return to originality. It's not remarkably different to other bands and indeed foregoing Porcupine Tree albums, but the hooks are better hidden and this isn't easy, party music.

I received the impression that the preview material was primarily instrumental, which, in hindsight, implies this was work-in-progress and more is to be added. Some of the instrumental sections seemed a little repetitive (not that repetition of excellent music is a problem, and it often enhances the immersive experience I've appreciated in earlier Porcupine Tree long songs). Likewise, some lyrics were repeated several times, suggesting they were 'holding text' to be elaborated later. I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of the instrumentals acquiring lyrics – I already like them as they are!

I'd like to say it was all wonderful, and I almost can, but I'm afraid the fifth track seemed to lack direction and featured some sort of guitar frenzy by SW which impressed the teenagers in front of me but to me was just pointless noise; there didn't seem to be an emotional backing to it with which I could engage. Likewise, the first half of the final track seemed, well, whiny, though it consolidated and built to an excellent ending.

In summary, I loved almost all of the first set, from the initial explosion of guitar noise to the last, and I'm looking forward to hearing the finished album with an intensity I didn't feel for 'In Absentia' and 'Deadwing'. The new material promises to blow away anything on 'Deadwing', and the third preview piece, a '17-minute beast' known about beforehand, is even better than 'Arriving Somewhere But Not Here'. Those who haven't been able to attend a concert on this tour and haven't had the privilege of the preview (and I do feel privileged, really) have missed something special.

The second set was more conventional.
Some who have attended shows on this mini-tour have complained that the song selection was a little stale, even suggesting the band 'must' be bored playing the same songs each night. After fifty minutes of brand new music, I think the band can be forgiven a return to familiar material in the second set – I doubt boredom is an issue. Demanding even more variety strikes me as excessively cheeky.
Others have criticised the focus on post-2002 material at the expense of the back-catalogue, and the lack of anything from 'Stupid Dream'. Firstly, it should be clear that this is the 'Arriving Somewhere...' tour to specifically promote the release of the live DVD. It's not the 'Stupid Dream' tour, and the fact that that album was reissued a few months ago is of no relevance. The second set was always going to draw on the DVD tracklist (which could have allowed 'Even Less' and 'Don't Hate Me', I suppose, though I don't think they'd have fitted the context). Secondly, this is still part of the overall promotional effort for 'Deadwing', so that album was bound to be favoured.

• Open Car – not a favourite from 'Deadwing', as the chorus, and particularly the lead-in to the chorus, suffers from the 'obviousness' flaw I mentioned earlier. That said, it was played well and was fun. The stage lights were directed at the crowd during key moments, and it was plain that people were enjoying it.
• The Sound Of Muzak
• Buying New Soul – somehow, the 'new' keyboards intro didn't work quite so well as on the DVD (though the transition to guitar was better), possibly because the audience's attention seemed to wander and conversation was audible over the relatively quiet music.
• Arriving Somewhere But Not Here – as excellent as always, though Wes' guitar solo after the climax of the song was a little too close to self-indulgent prog and I confirmed my earlier impression that, overall, the new '17-minute beast' is better.
• .3
• The Start Of Something Beautiful
• Trains – this drew a roar from the crowd (and a curious yelp from the cricket club woman) when it was announced, but a collective unfamiliarity with the music was revealed by extended applause in the normally-brief gap before the song's finale. SW seemed amused/confused, and just for a moment I though he was going to go with the crowd reaction and stop early. Thankfully not.

And then a brisk 20-min walk to Oxford Road station, an hour on a crowded train to Preston with not too many drunks, a 21-mile bike ride (~12 in increasingly heavy rain) to Lancaster, and straight to bed by 02:15!

I suppose I'd better declare a disinterest: generally, I don't like concert videos. I don't choose to experience music visually, and tend to listen whilst doing other things. I very rarely just sit and devote my full attention to music for more than a few minutes, and if I wanted to watch a DVD, it'd almost invariably be a feature film. For me, the music is about the music, and only the music. I have limited interest in the musicians, less in stage visuals, and no interest at all in the audience and 'live ambience'. Amongst the music DVDs I own, Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' and Marillion's 'Brave' are the only ones I've watched more than once, and I've yet to even finish two others by Marillion – mistaken purchases, in hindsight. I rented Opeth's 'Lamentations' a while ago, and thought the documentary was fairly good, but I returned it without even glancing at the concert footage, nominally the main content.
I made an exception for Porcupine Tree because a) it's Porcupine Tree and b) I can listen to the audio even if I don't bother with the video.

The first 2000 copies of 'Arriving Somewhere...' were a 'Special Edition', which sold out via pre-orders alone within four days – not bad considering that promotion was limited to a notice on the band's website, discussion amongst fans & an advert on the back cover of 'Classic Rock' magazine, and that sales were exclusively from the band's own web store. Further copies are selling extremely well on the accompanying mini-tour: the merchandise stall started the tour with 600 and sold them all at the first four shows.

The set comprises two DVDs in DVD-sized digipack packaging, itself in a card slip case. A (nearly) complete 105-min concert from the second 'Deadwing' US tour occupies the first disc, compiled from shows at the Park West, Chicago on 11 and 12 October, 2005. The second disc contains bonus material, described below. It's unclear whether a single-disc edition will be available at a later date.
The video format is region-free NTSC, which is playable on modern European, nominally PAL, DVD players.
The audio is in both PCM stereo and DTS 5.1 surround sound. I haven't heard the latter, but others have reported a slightly unusual mix which favours the side speakers and the bass end; no-one has expressed disappointment.

The content of the 'Special Edition' DVDs is identical to that of the the standard edition, but the first 2000 slip cases are numbered (I have sticker no.790) and came with six postcards. I know, I know; I could barely contain my excitement either. I'm sure they're very collectible postcards.

Disc One: The Concert

I'm not going to review the menu screens beyond saying they were adequate, using the same photography and design motifs as the cover.
Unfortunately, after the nice, feature-film-like opening titles, the main concert video made Carl Glover's very clean, colour-rich graphics for that cover and packaging seem almost misleading.

I'd dreaded, but been prepared for, excessively jumpy cutting between the multiple cameras (nine camera operators are credited), and got exactly that. Few shots were held for more than five seconds, and when the viewpoint returned to a particular camera, it had moved, increasing the slight disorientation. Annoying, but I've seen worse, and some of the cuts were to different views of the same subject, so some coherency was achieved.
However, I hadn't expected faux-degraded video material.

I'm pretty sure the raw footage was obtained using standard, modern cameras, with decent picture quality, but Lasse Hoile's post-production rendered the whole thing distinct grainy and in either sepia or the faded colours of aged cine emulsion. Film 'noise', including scratches, dust, and hairs were added as routine elements, with more extreme degradation (blotchiness, burned frames, etc.) in places.
Some the freeze-frame images actually make excellent stills, but this simply isn't what I want from a concert DVD. I want clear views of the band and their activities, and I doubt I'm alone. For example, for the bass-solo intro to 'Hatesong', the camera rightfully stayed on Colin Edwin, but the image is too dark, in grainy monochrome overlaid by coloured blotches & fake scratches and was deliberately blurred. All very atmospheric, but I'd quite like to actually see Colin. I'm sure some bass players would be interested in seeing his hands at that point; impossible.
Some 'arty/grungy' special effects might have been justified, but only occasionally, as atmosphere supplementing the primary content, the clean footage. Instead, this heavy-handed filtering becomes the focus of the production, imposing a barrier between the viewer and the immersive experience.
Presenting clean, unmodified images may be too 'obvious' and may have been done before on other bands' DVDs, but there's no merit in difference for the sake of difference, and anyway, effects become dated and cliched long before unpretentious footage which simply documents on-stage activities. Some people (on the production side more than the audience, I suspect) might find that boring, but I can only comment on my own taste, and this DVD doesn't satisfy my preferences.

To be fair, I did become accustomed to the style (and it's used less on later tracks), so it didn't totally spoil the experience, but I still wish it had been done differently and it irritates me that perfectly good footage was deliberately and unnecessarily degraded. If only I had access to Hoile's computer, so I could re-render the whole thing using the original, unfiltered material....

On the whole, the audience were unobtrusive, apart from in the obligatory 'from the crowd' shots, but there was at least one ****er standing right in front of the stage who kept raising his hand into the line of sight. Yes, you can go to the toilet, and don't ****ing come back.

The setlist was pretty good, showcasing the latest material without being too obvious (five songs from 'Deadwing' and three non-album tracks) and balanced by slightly older material (four from 'In Absentia' (2002), one from 'Recordings' (2001), one from 'Lightbulb Sun' (2000) and two from 'Stupid Dream' (1999)).

By the way, the aforementioned rendition of 'Hatesong' was wonderful, as was the subsequent track, 'Don't Hate Me'. Very nice instrumental sections. Richard Barbieri's keyboards intro to 'Buying New Soul' was another high point.

That's worth stressing: whatever my disappointment with the video component of the DVD, the music is excellent, especially the pre-'Deadwing' pieces, which tended to be substantial elaborations of the album versions (the newer material was mostly played 'as-is'). I do anticipate playing the DVD frequently as an audio live album and, if only on that basis, recommend it highly.

Disc Two: The Bonus Material

'Rockpalast'
I drastically prefer this style of concert video. The cuts were still a little jumpy, but the shots were held longer than the Chicago set and the jumps were between a small number of consistent viewpoints, so they're not too confusing. There are no distracting visual effects, either; just clear, true-colour coverage of the band.
'Radioactive Toy' is one of my favourite songs, and it was interesting to hear an interpretation by the current lineup. Too short! In the full version, as heard on 'Coma Divine', it was the extended 'ambient' middle section leading into the full-on rock climax which made the song special, so skipping the former diminished the latter, for me.

'Lazarus' promo video
I love the song, but the video is nothing special; cine film footage of a 1970s? family holiday in Québec intermingled with close-ups of band members. There's no specific cause for complaint, but earlier promo videos for Porcupine Tree and Blackfield have been so much more innovative and compelling.

Live projections
It was a good idea to include these short videos, as I suspect many concert-goers would find them interesting. I'm afraid I don't. In general, back projections aren't my thing. I don't want the distraction of someone else's visual interpretation of the music; at a concert I only want to see the band, whereas when listening to the music elsewhere I want to form my own mental images. Hence, I'd find these projected videos mere annoyances at concerts, and feel little inclination to watch them at home.
'Halo': I don't like the song anyway, so I suspect the one time I've watched this will also be the last.
'Mother And Child Divided': Actually, I'm not sure these things even work outside the concert setting. In isolation this was just boring.
'Start of Something Beautiful': That's more like it. This had the production standards of a 'proper', standalone promo video; punctuated by more generic imagery, it incorporated an excellent puppet animation by Przemysław Wszebor Bernacki which I would choose to watch for its own merits (though I still wouldn't want to see it at a concert). It accompanied a song I particularly like, but I doubt the video will influence my interpretation and appreciation of the song itself, thankfully.

Photo Gallery
Interesting enough, though I doubt I'd choose to watch the full 9½ minutes more than a couple of times. However, it's accompanied by the only totally new music on the DVD set: an almost ambient instrumental piece which I've immediately ripped to .wav for more frequent listening. Pretty good.

'Cymbal Song'
Why does a Porcupine Tree DVD include a Gavin Harrison solo track? It's okay (put it this way: I won't be ripping this to my mp3 player), but irrelevant, and I doubt I'll play it again.

[Update 1/10/06: interested in the live experience?]

If a performance was stunning, and the audience was especially impressed, extended applause and an encore would be justified. An encore shouldn't be routine; if a band was planning to perform extra material anyway, I'd prefer it to be played as part of the main set, and avoid the almost hypocritical artifice.

I've attended several concerts at which bands haven't deserved effusive applause (in some cases they haven't received it, either, but played encores anyway). For that matter, I've attended concerts at which inattentive, noisy audiences haven't deserved encores – I'd have a lot more respect for bands which withheld them.

The only case I can recall (vicariously, via an unofficial recording) occurred on Transatlantic's last European tour, when exceptional applause in Tilburg inspired the band to give an unplanned rendition of Pink Floyd's 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond'. That was special, and meaningful in a way the usual tacit game between a band and audience simply isn't.

Not so far as I've heard.

In general 'newsletters' to fans at the band's website, there have been repeated casual mentions of time spent in the studio working on new material, but it seems these have been odd days/weeks between tours rather than concerted efforts, and it's unclear who has been involved. It might have been Ian Anderson alone, working on another solo album (<yawn>), or the whole band. It's even unclear which band – the line-up billed as 'Jethro Tull' (not necessarily deliberately) for shows in Russia in June/July didn't include Martin Barre....

So don't hold your breath!

Baby Rock Records has started to release a series of 'Rockabye Baby!' albums, each featuring lullaby renditions of a particular 'alt.rock' (whatever) band's more famous songs.

The release schedule extends into 2007, and the later albums don't have samples online yet, but of those with samples, the Radiohead adaptations are excellent. I could say Coldplay music is soporific as-is, but the overtly lullaby versions sound good too. For Coldplay.
The only album I'm less sure about is the Pink Floyd one. Obviously, the originals were heavily-layered and nowhere near as simple as a melody overlaying a rhythm. That couldn't have been easy to unpick, but I don't think the reinterpretations emphasise the correct layers correctly (i.e. the selection and relative emphasis seem flawed). At least from 20-second samples, I had a trouble recognising almost half of the nine tracks.

[Via BoingBoing.]

Frequenting online forums where 'prog' is discussed, I often find them dominated by those who dislike 'popular' music, seemingly on principle. The subtext (and it's not always a subtext) isn't just that tens of thousands of fans can be wrong, but that the music is inferior because it has tens of thousands of fans.

This strikes me as mere pettiness and false elitism, a desire to think of oneself as superior to the herd.

I suppose it's only human nature to want one's own discoveries to remain one's own, or to share only as far as to cultivate exclusive cliques of 'the enlightened'.
I like to think I've outgrown it, but I have experienced a twinge of irrational resentment when forums devoted to minority-interest bands have been invaded by brand new fans acting like baby elephants, throwing around the weight of their enthusiasm and partial knowledge without deference to time-served veterans (heh). It's childish of the long-termers to resist, but their discomfort is understandable.
Yet it's far more childish to blame the bands and their music. Would a genuine admirer wish a band's career to remain stunted by lack of mass-exposure? Isn't that unacceptably selfish?

The key point is that I don't see a causal link between mass popularity and lowest-common-denominator simplicity. Yes, some bands have 'sold-out', and consciously changed to become more 'accessible', to deliberately chase demographics and commercial success. That's their right, of course, though I do find it disappointing and I rapidly lose interest.
Yet if a band continues to do what they always had, and that becomes popular, surely that's to be applauded and encouraged. Popular doesn't have to mean populist.

As with 'Everything', 'A Simple Mistake' can be downloaded for free (here; select 'Multimedia' in the menu), but donations are welcomed, and will directly help the band, who are having to cover their own costs at present.
There's nothing to prevent one from taking the tracks as freebies, and I suppose that'd help spread the word, if nothing else, but please consider paying a fair amount for them – one wouldn't be merely boosting the profits of some multinational corporation, but supporting the very viability of the band.

In claiming that he co-wrote some songs, a producer said that Blunt's early drafts were "crude, occasionally laughably direct, and betrayed his relative lack of musicianship or discernible influence."
As if discernible influence was a requirement, and true originality to be rigorously avoided.

I understand the reasoning, of course: marketability to a audience which seeks the familiar, but still, it's regrettable.

• Porcupine Tree – I was under-impressed by the two most recent albums, 'In Absentia' and 'Deadwing', but 'Stupid Dream' remains my all-time favourite album and I like virtually all of the back-catalogue alongside some tracks from the recent albums.
• Pink Floyd – Their awful* 'by-the-numbers' appearence at Live8 notwithstanding, I've always enjoyed the music of Pink Floyd, plus Roger Waters' solo material. I can't say I've enjoyed it all; I've never been drawn to the Syd-era material, I'm indifferent to most post-Waters material, and, unfashionably, 'Animals' leaves me utterly cold. Having listened to the albums & live recordings rather too intensively over the years, I've slightly burned-out on them, and tend not to listen to Pink Floyd's music so often nowadays, but when I do, I have no doubt that they're still important to me. The album version of 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' remains my absolute favourite piece of music, of any genre.
  *: No, that's unfair. The performance was fine. It's just that the setlist and arrangements were absolutely routine and could have been pre-recorded – twenty-five years ago. Pointless.
• Bass Communion – Some would dismiss this as experimental ambient... noise, but somehow it grabs me, and I can't hear it too often.
• Jethro Tull – I wasn't sure whether to include Tull, as I haven't liked anything they've released or performed within the last decade or so. However, I still enjoy their 1971-1995 material as much as ever, and with a couple of exceptions repeated listening hasn't (permanently) reduced that.
• Marillion – Primarily for the post-Fish h-era rather than the early neo-prog stuff, though some of that is good too. Like most of these choices, over-familiarity means I don't listen to Marillion's music on a daily or weekly basis, but I regularly return to it.

[Via Tim.]

That'd be what's called 'an artist', as opposed to a mere performer.

Art may entertain, but art isn't for entertainment. It goes further.

Two things you need to know: I dislike prog rock, reserving especial loathing for Yes, and I don't believe in expressing opinions from the protection of online anonymity that I wouldn't defend face-to-face.

I'm not exactly reticent in explaining that whilst I enjoy progressive rock (i.e. music which actively challenges genre boundaries, creating new music) I intensely dislike 'prog' rock (music of a specific, fixed genre which was genuinely progressive in the early 1970s but which ceased to progress). 'Progressive' and 'prog' are not the same thing.
There are bands I like which were part of the 'prog' genre when it was progressive, but which remained progressive and hence ceased to be 'prog'. There are also bands that stayed 'prog' and became a public and critical laughing stock – rightfully so. Unfortunately, that reputation unduly rubbed-off on the bands I do like. Hence my conclusion: that if crappy bands like Yes had never existed, bands I do like, such as Jethro Tull, would have achieved greater lasting critical and commercial success. Yes is an anathema.

All too often, I've witnessed, and occasionally been the target of, unrestrained verbal attacks of a cowardly savagery only possible because the arguments were online and the speakers had the protection of being thousands of kilometres from their victims. They tend to involve personal attacks, too, which are merely nasty and pointless.
Not that I'd be so childish anyway, but I operate under the basic principle of imagining I'm writing to someone in the same room. Debate might become heated, but it remains respectful and avoids the risk of being punched. To uncharacteristically use a football reference: 'Go for the ball, not the man'. As I said above, I also try to avoid making wild points online that I wouldn't feel able to support in a face-to-face conversation. I'm not perfect (no, really), but I generally achieve reasonable self-censorship.

I visited J & Fi for a meal last night (J remembered to cook – last time we ended up ordering a takeaway. Not that I'm complaining, and I rely on J recognising teasing!). They recently befriended one of their neighbours, and he joined us for dinner. In the course of the conversation, the subject of musical taste arose, and for some reason J. prompted me to confess a liking for 'Scandinavian prog'. Puzzled, I admitted slight embarrassment that there was a time when I quite liked the Flower Kings, but that they'd since joined my general dislike of the crap they were copying, such as Yes.
The neighbour had been sitting leant over the kitchen table, but at this point sat back, revealing a Yes t-shirt....

Time stopped.

I could have backed off, and attempted to say something conciliatory for the sake of politeness. Actually, I couldn't; I can't think of anything favourable about Yes whatsoever.

Sticking to my principles, I could have elaborated on my dislike in full, with vitriol. For a moment I seriously considered it. However, that would have been unprovoked and unnecessarily rude. Being prepared to defend a position is one thing, but forcing a view on someone uninvited is ruder.

I was glad to find that in the split-second of finding myself in a situation where I might have to espouse a contentious online opinion 'in real life' (i.e. tell a Yes fan I wished his favourite band had never existed), I had the courage of conviction to do so. However, I was more glad that my natural reserve intervened, and I didn't instigate an avoidable argument.
I simply said "Ah. Right. I don't like Yes." and changed the subject. To my dislike of post-1995 Jethro Tull. But that is indeed a different topic.

You are thieves. There is nothing for you here. **** off.

Clear?

The woman was Imogen Heap, and her second & latest solo album is 'Speak For Yourself'. For those totally unfamiliar with her work, I'd loosely describe it as if Dido had acquired influences from more esoteric electronica and had dropped the middle-class mundanity; feminine electro-pop with some substance. I'm sure others could describe it better, but this genre is somewhat outside my normal range of listening and I have limited terms of reference.

Her recent 'breakthough' success is due to four of her songs being featured in lightweight drama 'The OC' ³, but don't let that deter you – it wasn't written for a specific market, and isn't empty teen pop. Frankly, having lived with the album for almost a fortnight, it's not exactly ground-breaking, and slightly 'girly'⁴, but it's perfectly respectable vocal-led art-pop and I certainly haven't become bored after repeated listening. Her classical training shows in the intricate layering, and I'm still discovering details.

I can't deny that I was drawn to the 'auteur' aspect of her work: on her current album, Heap wrote, performed (there are a couple of guest appearences, but I suspect they're samples) and produced all the music in her own studio, found her own photographer and designed the album packaging herself, and released it on her own label, Megaphonic Records ('I, Megaphone', her first album, is an anagram of her name). This wasn't an amateur tinkering in a bedroom studio, though: her previous label was Universal/Island and Sony (UK) & RCA (USA) are distributing 'Speak For Yourself'.

Heap's MySpace biography describes the attraction, both as interviewee and as composer/musician: 'part cool 'n' collected statuesque beauty, part thrilled eight year old'. That MySpace site streams a few song samples; give them a try.

¹: Horrible phrase.
²: Yes, I noticed her physical appearence first. It's a regretable fact that if I hadn't found her attractive, I doubt I'd have paused long enough to hear her music.
³: The latest of several appearences on TV and film (e.g. 'Garden State' as 'Frou Frou') soundtracks.
⁴: Not in a perjorative way; I simply mean it's more overtly feminine than my usual gender-neutral or masculine musical taste.

I'm not going to review the album itself in detail, instead concentrating on the new aspects of the package.
'Stupid Dream' is by far my favourite Porcupine Tree album and the opening track, 'Even Less', is my favourite Porcupine Tree song. Both would easily be amongst my all-time favourites by any artist if I was so anal as to rank albums and songs.
'Piano Lessons' and 'A Smart Kid' are also especially high highlights, but there are very few weak points in the entire composition. Forget 'In Absentia' and 'Deadwing', this is the Porcupine Tree I love.

Maybe it's because of my particular familiarity with the original album, but this is the first Porcupine Tree remix that's been immediately apparent as different to the original. Even in stereo (I haven't heard the 5.1 mix) there's greater depth, with previously unregarded background elements catching my attention for the first time. 'Pure Narcotic' is particularly enhanced, but I'd better stress that these are enhancements, not more substantial revisions. The original material is suddenly in greater focus, but it's still the same material.

The second disc, a DVD-A (playable in any DVD player, but not a CD player, to state the obvious), contains bonus material: two extra tracks, a video, a photo gallery and the album lyrics.
I already had the 'Piano Lessons' video on the 'Stranger By The Minute' CD single, but a number of people have reported that subsequent updates to Quicktime have rendered that unplayable, so it's good to have it back.
The concert photos of the band don't interest me (no criticism, they're just not my thing), and the lyrics are in the booklet, so I don't anticipate visiting those sections of the DVD-A again.

Alongside bonus material, the DVD-A contains the entire album in 5.1 surround sound. There's also a PCM (24-bit high-res stereo) mix for those without a 5.1 player, but rather surprisingly, the two bonus audio tracks are only offered in 5.1, not stereo. My first impression was that this rendered them inaccessible to anone without a surround sound DVD player (my PC's DVD-ROM drive won't even show them). That wouldn't be disastrous, as they were previously released in stereo on 'Recordings', but it's a strange omission and besides, 'Recordings' is out-of-print. Anyone who didn't buy the original edition of 'Stupid Dream', i.e. the target market of this new edition, is also unlikely to have bought 'Recordings'.
However, that's a false alarm: I subsequently discovered that my very basic standalone DVD (standard DVD-V) player does play the bonus tracks through the two speakers of my TV. If that can handle them, I doubt anyone else will have a problem.

[Update 19:00: Those who have equipment capable of playing the 5.1 mix are reporting a technical fault. The DVD-A actually contains two 5.1 formats: DTS, for standard DVD players, and a higher-resolution DVD-A format only readable by dedicated DVD-A players. Apparently, the DTS version of the first bonus track, the full-length version of 'Even Less', cuts out at 11 mins, three minutes before the end. The DVD-A version seems okay, but far fewer people have DVD-A players than DVD players.]

Incidentally, the title menu animation of the DVD-A features a circle of video material gradually eclipsed by a black CD. Steven Wilson (SW) has always resisted comparisons between Porcupine Tree and Pink Floyd, so it's surprising that the eclipse, a motif so closely associated with 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and Pink Floyd's signature visual style, wasn't deliberately avoided.

I've always considered Carl Glover's graphic design style to have been heavily influenced by Storm Thorgerson's work for Pink Floyd, and the new 'Stupid Dream' booklet is no exception. I'm not saying there was the remotest intention to copy it, but I see a similarity to the 'Dark Side Of The Moon' booklet's layout and photography.

When it was first announced that the reissue of 'Stupid Dream' would have redesigned artwork, I was unconvinced that that was necessary, and frankly still am. The only weak point of the original version was the band photo, and that's the only aspect carried across to the new version. However, I suppose the new booklet has greater visual cohesion, the lyrics are readable, and after all, it's SW's album: if he didn't like the old artwork, he's entitled to replace it.

To restate earlier entries: the 2-disc edition of 'Stupid Dream' is exclusively available by mail-order from the band's own web store, Burning Shed. It will not be sold via high street stores or other web retailers, so don't bother to shop around. There is to be a retail edition, containing only the remixed/remastered album on CD without bonus material, but no release date has even been implied. Do not wait – it could be several months away; if past events are any indication, it could even be years. For the foreseeable future, it's Burning Shed or nothing.
[Update 11/7/06: Contrary to the original plan, the two-disc edition will be available via normal retail outlets for a limited period.]

Isn't that something to very reluctantly admit, when pushed by a hostile critic, rather than a remark to use as a selling-point? Do people want music that sounds like the music they already know and own?

Of course they do, and it's one of my biggest criticisms of mass-market music. It's not even the fault of major labels or marketing campaigns; it seems people really do want safe, unchallenging music which offers comfort rather than anything approaching stimulation.

Don't panic; I don't seriously expect 'Free' to be like that...stuff. I'm looking forward to hearing it.

When it eventually arrives. I ordered on the release date, but Amazon estimated the despatch date to be between 30 May and 13 June! I think there must have been an error; I've just cancelled and resubmitted the order, and the estimated despatch date is 1 May.

For a moment I thought something drastic had happened – that the site had been removed from the index, perhaps for illegitimate SEO tactics, but it's simpler than that. Apart from the three words 'AnathemA Official Website' in the <title> tag, the home page contains no text or html links. At all. It's a frameset containing Flash files; the navigation menu is in Flash, as is the introductory text. There's absolutely nothing for a search engine spider to index or follow.

'Make It Right (FFS)'. Is a song on the 'Judgement' album.

*: It's probably there somewhere, but I gave up after the 150th result....

Remember, 'Everything' is being offered as a DRM-free, free download; one doesn't have to pay for it, but if you do choose to make a donation it'll go directly to the band, not to a record company or other corporate entity.

Treat this as a freebie or as an opportunity to help ensure Anathema have a future career. Your choice.

Here's a radical thought: how about buying a legitimate copy on CD, from Racket Records (Marillion's own label and webstore), instead of attempting to cheat them out of a fair income? 'Unzipped' is a commercial release, not a freebie or in the public domain.

You parasitic ****.

To restate: the Ministry will not offer links or assistance in downloading music or video, except samples (typically low-res) which the artists have chosen to make available.

And don't even ask about BitTorrent.

Through no fault of their own, Anathema are currently unsigned, as their previous label, Music For Nations, was folded into parent company BMG/Zomba. Hence, though the songs are to be released in mid-April via the band's website for free, fans are encouraged to pay for the downloads via PayPal. The band are bearing all their own costs at present, so paying for the downloads would be helping them personally, not merely boosting a multinational's profits. This promotion could make a difference to the band's continued viability.

This isn't brand new news, but the original announcement said the tracks would be released via iTunes, which is why I haven't spread the word until now. I don't support the distribution of music exclusively in a DRM-crippled proprietory format, least of all Apple's. Thankfully, Anathema saw sense and revised that plan.

[Update 20/4/06: The first of these songs, 'Everything' is now available.

Anyway; it's called 'Free' and will feature Kevin Moore, Jim Matheos and Mike Portnoy again, with Joey Vera (of 'Fates Warning') appearing on five of the eleven tracks.

The announcement says that "Kevin Moore and Jim Matheos will be releasing a new OSI album...", which rather suggests that Mike P 'merely' played, having had a limited role in the actual composition and production. We'll have to see.

'Free' is scheduled for release on 21 April, though a special 2CD edition will be released, only in Europe, on 24 April.
If the debut 'OSI' album was any indication, the second CD of bonus tracks and outtakes will be of limited interest (I'd strongly recommend buying 'OSI', but don't make a particular effort to find the limited edition), but the price difference between the standard and special editions will be so minor that it will be worth buying the special edition anyway.

This is far from being Tull's first UK tour since 1990 (full tours in 1990-96, 1999, 2001 and 2004, and individual UK festival appearences in the intervening years, not to mention hundreds of concerts abroad), so what's so special about this one?

It's being billed as 'The 'Aqualung' Tour', which implies that that album will be played in its entirety each night (see below, though...). The supposition, therefore, is that the prospect of a setlist firmly anchored in 1971 has generated an abnormal level of interest. The old proggers are digging out the tie dye....

Well; best of luck to them, and I genuinely hope everyone has fun, but this sort of retrograde stuff is dangerously close to self-parody, and is a major reason why I gave up on contemporary Tull a full decade ago (the other is their post-1995 releases). I like bands which produce compelling fresh material, and tour with material less than, ooh, 35 years old. Ian Anderson has reinterpreted some of the old material, apparently, and if he & audiences find that stimulating, great, but it's not my thing.

Incidentally, if the 2005 US tour was any indication, UK audiences might be surprised to hear revised versions of the 'Aqualung' songs in amongst the usual Tull setlist, rather than a straight rendition of the album, in album order. The US shows didn't all feature all the Aqualung songs, either, though to be fair I don't believe that was promised at those shows.
[Update 28/02/06: That's correct. The first concert of the UK tour featured virtually the same setlist as the US dates, and omitted 'Wind Up.]

*: This has been verified by the venues; I don't merely mean that ticket agents have sold all those tickets allocated to them, which is a common false indicator of 'sold-out' concerts.

I'm not sure whether the phenomenon stated is really the one observed. Given a choice of 48 previously unknown songs, it's only natural to start with those that others have already rated highly, then perhaps those rated worst (which probably really will be the dross, perhaps with technical inadequacies). It's quite an investment of time to listen to 48 songs, and one will become tired after the first dozen or so, so those in the mid to low range won't receive the same freshness of attention, or mightn't be heard at all if one gives up.

That's the sampling process, which I suppose could influence one's critical choices, but listening to a song because it's already popular isn't quite the same as liking it because it's already popular. Existing popularity undoubtedly increases the chance that a song will be heard, but once heard, I think the chance of liking it is less deterministic.

I know that I've made a point of adding several of the IMDb top 250 films to my DVD Rental queue, partly to catch up on acknowledged classics which have somehow evaded me until now, and partly to discover what others think I should see. That's 'following the crowd', and choosing films because they're already popular, but it doesn't mean I'll like them.

That seems to be supported by the findings described in the latter half of the BBC article. When the subjects were split into eight groups, and could only see the rankings generated within their own groups, songs achieved very different popularity ranks in different groups. However, quality ratings were less influenced by peer grouping, and the same songs did well (or not) in all groups.

Hence, "success was not relative to the quality of the music" or, the depressing converse:

Again like 'Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do', there's a strong sense that the album is one continuous composition. Certain songs stand alone, but repeat specific elements (especially 'non-lyrics') and the non-specific 'feel' of others, whilst others seem more directly linked, track divisions merely marking a slight change in direction within a longer song.

The first few tracks are downright joyous, but darker, more wistful tones emerge towards the end. The transition isn't so abrupt as on '( )', which consists of two 'sides' separated by a silence, but the same principle applies to 'Takk...'. That said, there is an extended silence at the end of 'Milanó', and the next track, 'Gong' conveys a sense of desperation setting the less positive tone of the rest of the album.
Incidentally, that is 'Gong', not 'Göng', with an umlaut – it seems some fans and reviewers have a form of linguistic diarrhoea, sprinkling accented characters indiscriminately, perhaps to add a false sense of exoticism, and 'Gong' has been a frequent target.

Reviews containing gratuitous comparisons to Pink Floyd should be treated with contempt, but there is one parallel: like 1970s PF, Sigur Rós have been playing 'Milanó' and 'Gong' on tour for at least two years before committing them to an album. As such, those two tracks are very familiar, but with a freshness introduced by hearing them in a studio setting for the first time.

My favourite Sigur Rós song is 'Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása', from 'Ágaetis Byrjun'. Now that has competition: 'Glósóli', from 'Takk...'. Both have the same slow-build format, though the latter is arguably more overtly uplifting. Both have excellent videos, too, though I don't think that determines my liking for the music alone.

'Saeglopur' is another highlight. In fact, as the most accessible Sigur Rós track I know, it's probably a good starting point for those new to the band.

Highly recommended - probably my 'album of the year' for 2005.

However, I've been listening to them all day – all 53 Anathema tracks in my Creative Zen, back to back, so the words 'aversion' or 'antipathy' seem more apt; hearing even one more note within the next few hours would indeed be an anathema.

I still stand by my earlier reviews of the two most recent Anathema albums (good but flawed), but I've warmed to them a bit more, and the back catalogue between 1995 (i.e. post- doom metal) and those two consists of excellent albums, especially 'Alternative 4'.

General opinion of Riverside is strongly divided. Many, especially those very familiar with the prog-metal genre, don't see the attraction, regarding Riverside as too similar to too many other bands. Others, perhaps including those less jaded by familiarity, fully acknowledge that Riverside's influences are extremely obvious but feel that the results are worth hearing: good music, performed well.

The point of this entry is that someone at the Porcupine Tree forum produced a criticism which I hadn't previously encountered (about any band), and which puzzled me:

Weird.

Just occasionally, it's exactly what one fancies, and whilst being consumed, it's okay. However, almost immediately afterwards one is left feeling distinctly unsatisfied, a bit greasy, and slightly nauseous.

Of course, the biggest problem with Coldplay is that they only have that one song, repeatedly rephrased to fill whole albums. Never mind composition by numbers, this is composition by demographics.

It's rather annoying that highlights of the concerts described by Fish in the CD booklet aren't actually on the CDs; presumably one has to buy the DVD version, 'Fool's Company' to get them.
I've been spoilt by Fish's series of 'official bootlegs', which have been released with the selling point that they're complete and unexpurgated recordings of entire concerts. 'Mixed Company' isn't. It would be fair to call it a 'greatest hits, live' CD set: the highlights of his solo career and time with Marillion. Assuming the DVDs and CDs are aimed at the hardcore fans who will buy both anyway, and assuming that the rest of the concert is on the DVDs, that's fair enough. It's reasonable to collect those tracks the fans will play most often onto the CDs, so they can be played on any CD player – in a car, on a work computer, at home on a decent stereo, wherever. In contrast, the oddities and er, secondary songs (I can't think of a way of phrasing that which doesn't sound pejorative, but I don't mean it that way) could be presented on the DVD, which mightn't be played so often but would receive the viewer's full attention when it is played, justifying the use of the format. As it happens, the DVDs have 12 tracks (plus bonuses) and the CDs have 10, of which six are repeated on both.
However, only having the CDs, I feel a little short-changed; I don't think the CD set adequately stands alone.

Why not buy the DVDs? I've found that I just don't watch DVDs of bands, so they'd be a wasted purchase. I'm not sure why, but I just don't find/make the time, and always seem to watch a feature films instead. I have two Marillion and one Roger Waters DVD that I simply haven't watched, so I'm disinclined to buy more. Unfortunately this means I only bought the 'Mixed Company' CD set, so I'm missing the rest of the show, on the 'Fool's Company' DVD.

In summary, I was distinctly under-impressed, and doubt I'll play this often, if indeed ever again.

[To the people who reach this page via a search for 'fish mixed company
torrent': buy the CDs, you ****ing parasites. 'Mixed Company' is not a freebie to be downloaded, it's a commercial release, and you are thieves.]

[Update 26/10/06: I've been directed to a post SW made in a Progarchives forum on 8 August this year, in which he reported that he'd apologised to Stolt for the personal nature of his criticism, whilst defending his right to dislike the music, and to say so publicly.]

In short, Fish fans, and even more so, Fish, were the victims of deliberate fraud by his ex-office manager, Kim Waring, who stole at least £68,000. Haddington Sheriff Court found against her last month, and Fish is also pursuing her for £100,000 in damages.

I want to help spread the word that the problems had a specific cause rather than the store itself being unreliable and have been resolved. Fish has had a different office manager, of proven ability, since June/July, and the mail order business is apparently working well now.
More than most artists, income from his own retail outlet determines the viability of Fish's future career, so I urge people to give him the benefit of doubt and do buy from him again.

[Via Tim.]

1. Of all the bands/artists in your cd/record collection, which one do you own the most albums by?
That'd have to be Jethro Tull, with about 30 official albums/box sets and over 200 unofficial (concert) recordings. I can't say I've listened to many within the last couple of years, though.

2. What was the last song you listened to?
'Growing Up' – Peter Gabriel ('Up', 2002)

3. What's in your record/cd player right now?
In the PC: an unofficial recording of Sigur Rós at Edinburgh Corn Exchange on 10/11/05. Stunning rendition of Hafssól!
In the player downstairs: 'Urban Hymns' (The Verve, 1997). I've always liked 'Bitter Sweet Symphony', but the rest of the album is rather better than I remembered, and since I borrowed Helen's copy last month, I've been playing it frequently.

4. What song would you say sums you up?
I don't think in those terms.

5. What's your favorite local band?
The Ugly Jug Band, a two-man (and far more instruments) jugband who don't take it remotely serious enough. ;)

6. What was the last show you attended?
Not counting The Ugly Jug Band, and free public performances attended in Prague and Warsaw, it's been quite a while since I went to a 'proper' concert. It may even have been Marillion in July 2004. I was out of the country for the Porcupine Tree concert in Manchester in April this year, and I couldn't get to the recent Sigur Rós concert in Liverpool.

7. What was the greatest show you've ever been to?
Porcupine Tree, Manchester Academy 2, 05/03/03. Great concert, excellent sound quality, no video projections/annoying lights, and an unobtrusive audience.

8. What's the worst band you've ever seen in concert?
I've seen some dire bands as part of shared-bill shows e.g. charity concerts at the Gregson, or the old Worldbeat and WOMAD Morecambe festivals, and I've yet to see a support band I've rated (no! John Wesley was excellent supporting Fish at the Cavern, Liverpool on 6/12/01).
Worst headline act? Jethro Tull, Manchester Apollo, 21/9/95. Extremely loud (the loudest concert I've attended), but dull. That was the last time I saw them, and by 'last' I mean probably 'final'.

9. What band do you love musically but hate the members of?
'Love' and 'hate' are excessively strong terms.
Not counting the post-1995 material and performances, I like the music of Jethro Tull, but I'm not sure I'd like Ian Anderson outside that context.

10. What show are you looking forward to?
I really must sort out travel/accommodation and a ticket to the Porcupine Tree concert in Manchester on 8 December.

11. What is your favorite band shirt?
I like several band T-shirts, so that's difficult to answer. Probably Porcupine Tree's 'Deadwing' cover image shirt.

12. What musician would you like to hang out with for a day?
I suspect I'd be a bit overawed by any artist whose work I particularly like! If I could get past that, and if I had something meaningful to talk about, Steven Wilson.

13. What musician would you like to be in love with for a day?
Sorry; can't be bothered with this question.

14. Metal question: Jeans and Leather vs. Cracker Jack clothes?
I wouldn't recognise the latter, and dislike jeans, so it'd have to be only leather, if the very idea wasn't ridiculous!

15. Sabbath or solo Ozzy?
Neither. No interest whatsoever.

16. Commodores or solo Lionel Ritchie?
Likewise. No interest.

17. Punk rock, hip hop or heavy metal?
Oh, metal, definitely, though I only like a few bands, not the genre as a whole and certainly not the mainstream teen-orientated varieties.

18. Doesn't Primus suck?
Dunno. The name means nothing to me.

19. Name 4 flawless albums:

• 'Wish You Were Here' (Pink Floyd, 1975).
• 'Stupid Dream' (Porcupine Tree, 1999) ('flawless' could be a bit of a stretch). Incidentally, wait for the 2006 reissue rather than spend literally hundreds of pounds on a copy from eBay!
• 'Bass Communion II' (Bass Communion, 1999).
• 'The Piano Concerto/MGV' (Michael Nyman, 1994).

21. What was the greatest decade for music?
Ah, the topic of a thousand dead-end online debates. There's no such thing. 'Greatest' implies objective, measurable superiority. Much of my favourite music is from the 1990s/current decade.

22. How many music-related videos/dvds do you own?
Not many (under ten), and more than I need. As I've mentioned before, I rarely find/make time to watch concert recordings.

23. Do you like Journey?
Again, the name means nothing to me. Could be a song, a band or a variety of sound insulation, for all I know.

24. Don't try to pretend you don't!
Whatever.

25. What is your favorite movie soundtrack?
I'm rarely conscious of music during films; when I first saw '28 Days Later', I didn't even notice the Godspeed You Black Emperor material, and I particularly like their music. I suppose Peter Gabriel's contribution to 'Birdy' was an exception.

26. What was your last musical 'phase' before you wised up?
I haven't listened to much folk-rock this decade. More recently, I've started to wonder how I could ever have listened to the Flower Kings.

27. What's the crappiest CD/record/etc. you've ever bought?
I don't remember, so it probably wasn't anything spectacularly awful. Not counting albums I genuinely liked at the time but which I've subsequently outgrown (fifteen years ago, I had several Iron Maiden albums), Ian Anderson's 'The Secret Language Of Birds' would probably feature prominently on the list. I've never rated that one, from the first time I heard it.

28. Do you prefer vinyl or CDs?
Definitely CDs. I have no patience with the view that vinyl is inherently 'better'. In theory, analogue technology could capture more of the original sound than 16- to 20-bit digital, but I simply don't believe the difference is detectable by the human ear. I think emotional attachment to the old technology generates an imaginary sense that vinyl's superior. A preference is absolutely fine, of course, but opinion is too often expressed as fact.

The A-side is 'Hoppípolla', which some may have seen/heard on BBC2's 'Later...' a fortnight ago. It's one of my favourite tracks from 'Takk...', which is currently tying with 'Ágaetis Byrjun' as my favourite Sigur Rós album, and is almost certainly my 'album of the year'. I suppose I'm recommending it....

The B-sides are the brief 'Með Blóðnasir', which seems to be treated as the outro to 'Hoppípolla' in live performances, plus the long-awaited 10-minute studio version of 'Hafssól'. That song has been a highlight of concerts for years, and has considerably evolved from the (frankly unimpressive) 1997 studio version on 'Von'.

The album titles ('Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever' & 'The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place', and several of the track titles ('Greet Death', 'Memorial', 'Glittering Blackness', etc.) sound distinctly gothy, but the music doesn't (if that isn't your thing), and they are instrumentals, so such themes obviously aren't reinforced by lyrics.
In theory, one could enjoy the music without even knowing the titles, though it does add to my appreciation that the titles of my favourite tracks, 'Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean' and 'First Breath After Coma' do fit the music somehow.

There's a lot of repetition in a typical track, giving the listener clear familiarity with the rhythm and underlying theme, but the breathtaking part is when the lead guitars suddenly soar free, each independent of, but complementary to, the other.

EITS are very taper-friendly, so if you'd like to hear samples, several full concerts are freely available at the Live Music Archive.

The reason I'm mentioning them now is that I've just discovered that:

• They're currently touring in Europe, mainly the UK.
• Their first album, 'How Strange, Innocence', long out-of-print, has been remastered and released this month with new artwork.

A warning to those seeing them live: they have a reputation for being extremely loud. Take earplugs, just in case. Seriously.

It's great that this sort of thing receives mass-market coverage at all, but it's hardly a brand new development, and it's not just sour grapes to complain that the jounalist didn't mention Marillion's pioneering role in internet-led self-marketing.

Two particularly bad examples are 'Space Transmission' on Porcupine Tree's 'On The Sunday Of Life...' and 'Human Love' on Chroma Key's 'Graveyard Mountain Home'. I haven't heard either track in its entirety, even once – I find them that unlistenable.
Somehow, 'Fitter Happier', from Radiohead's 'OK Computer' is bearable – less self-consciously 'lyrical' perhaps – though I still tend to skip it unless I haven't heard it for a year or so.

Anyone else feel the same way?

How about this one: if you bought an album on CD (for more than one song), then a couple of months later, another edition was released, absolutely identical but with the addition of a 'B-side' bonus track, would you buy the entire album again, just for that one song?

Particularly in the USA, it's normal for a concert venue to take a cut of any merchandise sold by a band on the premises. Sometimes, the fees facing bands become extortionate. Sigur Rós, currently on their biggest ever tour (they played at the Hollywood Bowl last Wednesday) have become annoyed at the system, and felt they had to respond to an especially bad situation at Friday's concert at the Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas, by selling T-shirts for $1 each. A statement from Dean, their manager:

At least one person at the message board expressed my view: wherever possible, buy merchandise from a band's website, not at concerts (here's Sigur Rós' web store). It matters to me that the retailer's/venue's cut goes to the band themselves. I do the same for albums: I never buy from Amazon if a band has their own online shop, and I never buy from high-street retailers, period.

Of course, there are pressures within the industry, and bands mightn't always be able to set their own merchandising policies, but I'd urge bands to, wherever possible, include the web in their sales strategies from the outset.
I feel bands like Porcupine Tree get it entirely wrong. They take T-shirts, etc. on tour, then sell off whatever's left afterwards via the web store. If they were to allocate stock to the website from the start, I'm absolutely convinced they'd sell more, earn more from those sales, and get T-shirts seen in public before concerts, when the need for promotion is greatest.

'Ghost Reveries' was released almost a month ago, on 29 August, but I couldn't write this review until now. For the first few days of living with it, I thought it merely 'okay', but then began to 'get' it. As familiarity has increased, my opinion has developed further (hmm.... that sounds like my normal response to more overtly 'proggy' albums), and I now rate it as one of the best albums I've heard this year.

When 'Damnation', was released in 2003 some claimed that Opeth, under the influence of Steven Wilson (producer of the three Opeth albums 2001-2003, but not 'Ghost Reveries', due to scheduling conflicts), had 'clearly' moved on from their death metal origins. However, they had misunderstood the nature of that project, and that 'Damnation' was the non-metal twin of it's full-on metal companion album, 'Deliverance', recorded during the same sessions. Hopefully, all such misunderstandings can now be forgotten, as 'Ghost Reveries' is an emphatic return to the pre-existing Opeth formula of death metal interspersed by, even intermingled with, lighter material.
The start of the album could be interpreted as a statement of intent - the first seven seconds could be a continuation of 'Damnation', but lead straight into perhaps the heaviest material on the album.

There are those who just don't like death metal, and the 'cookie monster' style of vocals. I'm afraid there's no avoiding them, and if the death metal growl is an insurmountable barrier, you needn't read on.
Personally, death metal lyrics don't remotely interest me, so I'm more than happy to accept Mikael Åkerfeldt's growl simply as an instrument contributing to an overall sound I like immensely, just as I like Jónsi Birgisson's falsetto as a contribution to the Sigur Rós sound, irrespective of the fact that Jónsi's Hopelandic lyrics are literally meaningless. Hence, once one passes the initial shock of Mikael's metal vocals, I do like them, especially in combination with his excellent 'clean' vocals – he doesn't only growl!

In fact, on repeat listening, I only think of two sections, perhaps 3-5 minutes of the 67 min. album as 'very heavy'; the rest is little heavier than, well, Porcupine Tree. This is certainly the most 'prog' of Opeth's albums. As usual, the songs are of stereotypical 'prog' length: four of the eight are over ten minutes long and only one is slightly under four minutes long.

A major change is that Opeth are now a five-piece band. Steven Wilson had contributed relatively isolated keyboard fills on the foregoing three albums, but Per Wiberg has joined as a full member, on mellotrons, organs and pianos. I wouldn't say that the keyboards take greater prominence than on previous albums, but the sound is frequently 'rounded out' nicely. This development may have more impact on live performances.

I was momentarily concerned by a couple of sections in the first two tracks, thinking them a little too 'obvious' and simplistically catchy, but they're the exception, and assimilated into the overall pieces, work rather well. In particular, there's something all-too-similar to Symphony X-style prog metal rubbish two minutes into 'The Baying Of The Hounds', but that misjudged interlude only lasts for less than a minute.

I'm not sure whether this is correct, but I've read that the outro of 'Atonement' (from 5:24 to the end) is actually 'Reverie', and that the CD is wrongly indexed. That'd make it 'Atonement/Reverie' and 'Harlequin Forest', not 'Atonement' and 'Reverie/Harlequin Forest', as listed. I feel the album sounds best played as one continuous composition rather than as isolated songs. In this context, I don't think the positioning of track divisions makes a huge difference, though some might disagree.

This album (and band) mightn't be for everyone, but I certainly recommend it. If anyone is tempted, I'd urge you to play the album or samples more than once – this isn't instantly-gratifying easy listening.

I can't help wondering whether this low-key release is testing demand for something more – I can't help hoping so, as I enjoy Opeth's non-metal 'Damnation' album almost as much as their more usual melodic death metal. In fact, the chorus of 'To Rid the Disease' on that album is directly copied from 'Mordet i Grottan' (music, not lyrics).

Update 15/09/05: Now I have my copy, I can recommend the limited edition. The only words in the entire book are the band name, album title and track titles – I had to hunt to even find a copyright date (and that's on the CD) – which is somewhat uninformative, but full album credits are available from the website, so that's no criticism.

The book (which is about the same size as a jewel case, rotated to portrait orientation) is simply a beautiful item. The '24 pages' include the covers, and the inner pages are printed single-sided (i.e. 8 sides are blank) with screenprinted permutations of three graphical elements: the archway of plants and boy from the cover, and a bird in flight. For a moment, I thought they were real screenprints, unique to each copy, but I was mistaken. At least that's an indication of the item's quality.

I wasn't sure what to expect from 'a floating die-cut wallet for the CD' – perhaps a sleeve separate from the book itself. It isn't; it's bound into the book as the back endpaper. The matching front endpaper is textured, embossed with the archay of plants. The die-cut element is that the CD is visible in its sleeve through a hole, in the shape of a flying bird.

Beautiful, like the music.

I do think this is a side-effect of the mobile phone age. Nowadays there's a blurring of public and private space, which I don't regard as an advance.

I did know this was coming, but it's even worse than I'd anticipated: Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull, is, alongside members of Yes, the Doors, Styx, Deep Purple, King Crimson and Toto, contributing to a project reproducing Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. What's wrong with the original? Why **** about with it?

Former Yes member Billy Sherwood says that 'Back Against The Wall' has "honored the emotion of the original while bringing out the individual personalities of all