Three-Tune Tuesday: A Harder Live Edge

I am again struggling to find new material to listen to. The prospect of rummaging through the vast back catalogue of 'Big Big Train' is a daunting prospect, and I still haven't got past 'The Underfall Yard' and I mean the track, not the album.

That song is in danger of being overplayed and constantly hums through my head. How can I have an earworm for something that is 22 minutes long?

So... less of the easy listening, today's selection is from one of my favourite bands 'Porcupine Tree' and are live performances that tend to start all unassuming, and gentle, but end up like rock monsters with solos and riffs that get your air guitar humming and rotating through the air.

Porcupine Tree – Dark Matter (Signify – 1996)

While I think ‘Dark Matter’ is by far the best song on their early album 'Signify', the studio version is far more subtle than what eventually turns out to be.

Like most of their songs, patience is a virtue and it doesn't start opening up until well after the 3-minute mark. The atmospheric ambiance resembling 'Pink Floyd' is quite intentional.

John Wesley as the session guitarist is well up to the part, and a great guitarist but his backing vocals I am not totally convinced by.

The sublime solo that starts the end of this song is nothing short of wonderful and must be listened to. Who says 'Steven Wilson' can't master the guitar and perform the more complex stuff?

I love the look ‘Richard Barbieri’ gives him during this effort; you can see he’s enjoying himself.

Porcupine Tree – Hatesong (Lightbulb Sun – 2000)

I wish Steven had made an effort to bring 'Colin Edwin' back into the band for their recent collaboration of 'Closure/Continuation’.

That great bass line that begins this eventual rocking song that starts... oh so gradually with the soundscapes of 'Richard Barbieri’, the piano that sounds slightly off key and the distorted guitar of Wilson.

This is far from a standard-sounding song, with its length and frequent stop-starts, along with a chorus that is wonderful, but very sporadic.

The studio version contains some strange sounds such as engines taking off, or it sounds like it to make, but here we get a much more raw performance that is suitably nosier.

The studio album ‘Lightbulb Sun' hosts this track, and in my opinion, one of their weaker efforts. I'm sure some would disagree, but there seems to be more chaff on this than most of their others.

Porcupine Tree – Cheating the Polygraph (Nil Recurring – 2007)

Why this was omitted from ‘Fear of a Blank Planet’ beats me. ‘Nil Recurring' was a set of out-takes released on an EP during the 'Fear' sessions, presumably because there was no space on the main album for them.

Some of them, I can understand not making the cut, but ‘Cheating the Polygraph' is not one of those. I note 'Gavin Harrison' has a writing credit, and the other band members gain credits for some of those other 'reject songs'.

While it was the studio version I was first introduced to, the live one is equally entertaining, with Barbieri’s ‘warm-blanket’ effect kicking in, only to be snatched away from the listener who is given a raucous ear workout.

If this is a B-Side, then they are doing a great job, and this one ranks up with the audacious 'Bonnie the Cat', which includes an authentic screeching electronic feline vocal somewhere in its mid-section.

Polygraph machines? Aren't they a little old in terms of technology? I figured something new would have replaced them by now.

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