December 1994 - Staircase Infinities

A month after my last release and a year and a half since "Up The Downstair", Porcupine Tree released their first EP "Staircase Infinities" in December of 1994. It's comprised of B-sides from the sessions for "Up The Downstair" and is therefore still all the work of Steven Wilson. Let's see what didn't make the cut for the last album!

The first song on the EP is "Cloud Zero" and it's an instrumental track that is extremely psychedelic with lots of strange, weird and trippy noises made by Steven on guitar and keyboards. After almost a minute of this trippy intro the bass and drums finally join in to form the backbone of a more standard riff and then Wilson plays some cool lead guitar overtop, all while the trippy noises continue in the background. This pretty much sums up this whole song, but there's lots of cool guitar and while I understand why this ended up being a B-side, it's still a cool song. Up next is "The Joke's On You" and Wilson plays a slow but smooth guitar riff to lead the way and he also sings very softly overtop while also adding some much less noticeable trippy noises in the background. The chorus is a bit louder and sounds good but Wilson's vocals still sound pretty quiet. After another verse and chorus Steven plays a simple but fairly epic guitar solo that fits the mood nicely and then after another loud chorus things quiet right down and then the sing takes way too long to end with not a whole lot happening for the last bit of this song. Track 3 is "Navigator" and it's another trippy instrumental song with Wilson playing lots of dreamy and trippy keyboards and keeping the pace with a quiet but pretty cool drum beat that just continues in the background. After this trippy backdrop is established Steven plays some epic lead guitar overtop and he switches between lead guitar and lead keyboards overtop, both of which sound pretty epic and cool overtop of the dreamy background. The next song is "Rainy Taxi" and it's another instrumental track that sounds very dreamy and psychedelic with everything echoing several times over: guitar notes, keyboard chords and little percussion hits that all echo and form a pretty trippy "riff". About three minutes into this trip, Steven plays a more standard light guitar riff that drives a new riff and then he plays some pretty cool lead keyboards overtop that sounds like some sort of organ. The organ sounds epic and cool leading the way and I know this was slow and instrumental, but this easily could've made the album. The final song on this EP is the longest at nine and a half minutes and is called "Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape". We hear what sounds like a live audience at first (though it isn't live at least) and after hearing some trippy noises Wilson starts up a slow main riff on guitar and bass and it drives things along pretty nicely while the trippy noises continue in the background. We hear some very quiet, distorted talking that I can't make out and eventually things start to pick up; first with a faster, cooler drum beat and then Wilson basically plays a really long guitar solo overtop of everything else. He sounds pretty good leading the way with lots of cool guitar parts and his bass and drum playing is pretty solid as well, oh and don't forget all those trippy keyboards. For the last few minutes we've picked up the pace yet again and Wilson plays some great lead guitar overtop this faster, toe-tapping riff. Things fade out in a nice trippy way as the "audience" returns to clap out the real music, but the trippy noises continue for another minute or so as they end things as they began.

That is the end of "Staircase Infinities" and I thought it was a cool, very psychedelic EP. I can see why most of these songs didn't make the full album, but there's definitely lots of cool stuff still on here. I look forward to hearing their next full-length album soon! This is also the final release of the year and so begins the year-end wrap-up! 11 albums this year (plus one live album and a couple EPs) is two more than last year, but the quality of the albums this year was high, high enough that I will be doing a top 10 this year instead of a top 5. Let's check it out!

Favourite song of the year: There were several great songs this year, and it's hard to pick just one as usual. "I'm Broken" by Pantera was pretty sweet but I think I'll have to go with "Spoonman" by Soundgarden which was pretty awesome all-around.

Top 10 Albums of the Year

1. Superunknown by Soundgarden
2. Far Beyond Driven by Pantera
3. Divine Intervention by Slayer
4. Korn by Korn
5. Naveed by Our Lady Peace
6. The Division Bell by Pink Floyd
7. Smash by The Offspring
8. Epilog by Anglagard
9. Awake by Dream Theater
10. Pisces Iscariot by The Smashing Pumpkins

EPs
1. Jar Of Flies by Alice In Chains
2. Staircase Infinities by Porcupine Tree

That's a lot of pretty great albums this year, but I if course like the heavy Slayer and Pantera albums and "Superunknown" was a fantastic album to top my rankings. Things are starting to ramp up as we move into the latter half of this decade and although some bands are ending (like Nirvana) there were also some cool new ones, like Korn and OLP and I can't wait to see what 1995 will have in store!