Steven Wilson (ex - Altamont, Karma), a twenty years old guitarist, composer, producer coming from London, established an imaginary band called Porcupine Tree. Wilson was the only member of this fictional art-rock band originated in the 70's with an absurd discography and non-existent band members. Steven Wilson (born on November 3, 1967) developed an interesting fictional history of the legendary band and began to send his own demos to the British record companies. Wilson incredibly managed to persuade a newly emerging record company of the Porcupine Tree's music that they included their track "Linton Samuel Dawson" in a compilation CD of the best underground psychedelic groups. During 1990 and 1991, Steven Wilson began to distribute a couple of releases "Love, Death and Mussolini" and "The Nostalgia Factory" to the most important record companies. He was distributing his music for a such a long time until he managed to sign to the Delerium label that released a Porcupine Tree's debut album "On the Sunday of Life…." shortly afterwards.

At the beginning of 1993, Steven Wilson began to record the second album "Up the Downstair" with the help of vocalist Suzanne Barbieri, Richard Barbieri, and Colin Edvin. In December of 1993, Porcupine Tree stopped being the imaginary band and it became a live unit featuring, in addition to leader, vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist Steven Wilson, keyboardist Richard Barbieri (ex - Japan), bassist Colin Edvin and drummer, percussionist Chris Maitland. This line-up lasted unchanged for nine years until the spring of 2002.

In 1994, Porcupine Tree performed in Great Britain and other European countries. Some live performances were recorded for the BBC Radio One and became a basic stuff for the live "Spiral Circus" album. In the half of the 90's, Porcupine Tree issued an excellent study album "The Sky Moves Sideways" bringing the mixture of progressive psychedelic and ambient rock experiments. Soon after, the band set out on a tour of the USA.

Besides founding the fictional Porcupine Tree in 1987, Steven Wilson formed a functional art-rock trio No Man with vocalist Tim Browness and violoncellist Ben Coleman (he left the band later). Steven Wilson also teamed up with other musicians, for example with Fish whom he helped with his album "Sunsets of Empire" in 1996. Wilson also played guitar parts in the Fish's concept album "Raingods with Zippos" three years later.

After releasing the album "Signify" in 1996, the band went on to a successful European tour with a three-night stop in Rome where Porcupine Tree performed in a sold-out hall for more than 5,000 fans. All these performances were recorded for the 1997 live album "Coma Divine". In March of 1999, an excellent album "Stupid Dream" was released. A year later, Porcupine Tree performed as a support band of the American Dream Theater during the part of their tour and they also warmed up the audience in the Czech republic. In May of 2001, Porcupine Tree released both "Recordings", a collection of older material and various unreleased issues from the previous two albums, and "Metanoia" originated from the session during recording the album "Signify". Soon after, Porcupine Tree released a double compilation set "Stars Die-the Delerium Years 1991-97" featuring the band's early works.

In September of 2002, the band released the album "In Absentia" (recorded from March of 2002) and it has been the first album issued by a big record company. European release was on January 13, 2003. New drummer Gavin Harrison participated in recording the album because Chris Maitland quit the band in March of 2002. The album reflects the spirit of the 70' s atmosphere again and the band follows in the footsteps of the likes of Pink Floyd, Marillion, King Crimson (and even nowadays Coldplay).

At the beginning of 2003, Porcupine Tree set out on a tour of the USA and Europe.

On February 17, 2003, a new progressive rock band called O.S.I. released its first new album "Office of Strategic Influence". The band consists of drummer Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, singing keyboardist, programmer Kevin Moore and guitarist, bassist, keyboardist,  programmer in one person Jim Matheos of Wates Warning. They teamed up with bassist Sean Malone and vocalist Steven Wilson who participated in the track "shutDOWN" included in the album as guest musicians.

The leader of Porcupine Tree participates in a great number of side projects, for example, he is involved in Opeth, a Swedish prog metal band, as a producer and co-writer.

On February 16, 2004 "In Absentia" was released in 5.1. surround sound.

On January 25, 2005 Porcupine Tree released the new live album "Warszawa" recorded by the Polish radio III during the band's "Lightbulb Sun" tour. The invited audience helped to enhance the live atmosphere in the studio. The entire performance was recorded on a 32 track digital tape recorder and remixed in the No Man's Land studio in June 2001. The live performance running over 79 minutes is one of the last shows with Chris Maitland on drums. Except him, keyboardist Richard Barbieri, bassist Colin Edwin, and Steven Wilson, the leader of the quad, participated in recording the album.

The new Porcupine Tree studio album "Deadwing" in 5.1 sound is to be released on March 21, 2005. The new album will feature nine or ten tracks from the total number of twenty composed songs, fourteen of which are in their final versions. There are interesting guests who appear on the album like Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth and Adrian Belew of King Crimson. "Deadwing" and "Arriving Somewhere but Not Here" are the longest compositions of the album. The band will set out on a tour of Great Britain on the last day of March. In May 2005, Porcupine Tree will set out on a tour of the U.S.A.

Porcupine Tree's latest masterpiece "The Incident" will be released September 21. Prepare to embark on a thrilling audio journey. In turns haunting, unnerving, desolate, hypnotic, and euphoric, its centre-piece is the title track - a stunning 55-minute musical statement, described by vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Steven Wilson as "a slightly surreal song cycle about beginnings and endings and the sense that 'after this, things will never be the same again'." The seeds of the idea that led to The Incident came to Wilson as he became caught up in a motorway traffic jam whilst driving past a road accident.

"There was a sign saying 'Police - Incident' and everyone was slowing down to rubber neck to see what had happened," he recalls. "Afterwards, it struck me that 'incident' is a very detached word for something so destructive and traumatic for the people involved. And then I had the sensation that the spirit of someone that had died in the car accident entered into my car and was sitting next to me. "The irony of such a cold expression for such seismic events appealed to me, and I began to pick out other 'incidents' reported in the media and news," continues Wilson. "I wrote about the evacuation of teenage girls from a religious cult in Texas, a family terrorizing its neighbours, a body found floating in a river by some people on a fishing trip, and more. Each song is written in the first person and tries to humanize the detached media reportage."

Additionally, Wilson delved back into incidents in his own life that had profoundly affected him, including a lost childhood friendship, a seance, his first love, and the day that he decided to give up secure employment to follow his dream of making music. The self-produced album is completed by four standalone compositions that developed out of band writing sessions last December - Flicker, Bonnie The Cat, Black Dahlia, and Remember Me Lover - housed on a separate CD to stress their independence from the title track.

Porcupine Tree - completed by Gavin Harrison (drums), Colin Edwin (bass), and Richard Barbieri (keyboards) - took a video camera into the recording studio, capturing a few moments to share with fans.

Petr Zlámal   (Czech)
Translated (from Czech to English) by Eva Dudova

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