Porcupine Tree: On the Sunday of Life 2LP Vinyl

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set carries Steven Wilson's remaster in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics across the inner spread, pressed in the EU. It's the pop-psych debut where the Porcupine Tree story begins.

This edition

2LP set
Remastered by Steven Wilson
Gatefold jacket
Lyrics on inner spread
Pressed in the EU

About the album

Long before the arena shows, Porcupine Tree was a private joke that got out of hand. Steven Wilson recorded the songs alone at his No Man's Land studio between 1988 and 1991, passed them around on three demo tapes (Tarquin's Seaweed Farm, Love, Death & Mussolini and The Nostalgia Factory) and asked people to spread the word. When the Delerium label came calling, he picked the best of the bunch for the debut.

The result is a playful, psychedelic patchwork. "Radioactive Toy" stretches out into the spacey prog that pointed the way forward, "Jupiter Island" and "Third Eye Surfer" lean into sunny psychedelia, and "The Nostalgia Factory" and "Nine Cats" show Wilson's knack for a tune. In between come short sound experiments, from "Music for the Head" to "Queen Quotes Crowley." The leftovers ended up on Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape in 1994.

Richard Barbieri and Colin Edwin came aboard soon after, and the one-man project became a band. Any album with a track called "Message from a Self Destructing Turnip" was clearly not designed by committee, and we're all the better for it.

Also at Kops: more Porcupine Tree on vinyl · browse Rock