Porcupine Tree Album: “Voyage 34 [Digipak]”

This is the wrong album for introducing yourself to Porcupine Tree; I'd go first to the compilation "Stars Die: The Delerium Years" or "Deadwing" for that purpose. However, once you're into the band, it's a must-own component of the back-catalogue.

Ya gotta love the sheer audacity of the concept: To provide a 64-minute soundtrack for a head trip. There are only four tracks, all of which are lengthy and bear no resemblance to typical song structures. They just meander all over the place, held together by a lick lifted directly from "The Wall" and interspersed snippets of dialogue from people who have taken LSD (or the researchers monitoring them). I enjoy Phase I the best, and it will be familiar to those who own "Stars Die," but this is not the kind of album you put on to hear individual tracks. It's not an album at all, in the traditional sense, but it is a concept album in the very best sense, one that would almost certainly make Pink Floyd proud.

I got this on my travels in Finland and have been quietly impressed by the music on it. As has been mentioned here, Porcupine Tree seem to be the middle ground between The Orb and Pink Floyd which is no bad thing. The music is very light, airy and definitely trippy too ( without the need of any psychedelic drugs I may add too ). I quite enjoy the random dialogue snippets as this makes it seem/sound a bit more of a scientific experimentation set to music. If you do like your psychedelic music more musically trippy than lyrically - this is as good a place to go for your dosage.

This is the beggining of the real sound of Porcupine Tree; an excellent cd for all PT fans, not for begginers.

In a nutshell this album is an hour long musical journey through an acid trip. The album is all instrumental with the exception of quite a few voice over¡¦s from old 1960¡¦s LSD documentaries, and acid tripping participants. 60¡¦s acid guru Timothy Leary is featured as well. There is a definite Pink Floyd influence to all of this, especially the main theme which is very similar to ¡§Another Brick In The Wall¡¨ from ¡§The Wall¡¨ album. This is another disc that was created prior to Porcupine Tree actually becoming a band. Stephen Wilson is the sole contributor to the music on phase 1, 2 and 3 of the disc, and that in itself is pretty amazing. Some Porcupine Tree fans really dislike this album while others hail it as an early triumph. I think you have to take it for what it is, but for the most part I have always really liked it. Listening to the album with the aid of inebriating substances can definitely enhance the experience (I admit to nothing º), but I have also always enjoyed the disc straight up as well.

Voyage 34 was actually a collection of two extended singles released in 1992 and 1993, the first two parts from 1992 and the last two from '93. OK, so material here was supposed to be slated for Up the Downstair, but didn't. At this early point in Porcupine Tree's career, it was still a Steve Wilson project, he had yet to have a band (but that would quickly change), although on "Phase IV", Richard Barbieri provided synth work.

Many people regard this as one of the worst albums in the Porcupine Tree catalog, but it's not that bad. For one thing this is an instrumental album, you won't find Wilson's voice anywhere, but you do hear spoken dialog, about some guy by the name of Brian and his experience of LSD. Porcupine Tree was hardly the first to do an album about the experience of LSD, way back in 1967, none other than well-known Bay Area psychedelic rockers Jefferson Airplane recorded an album called After Bathing at Baxter's which was supposed to document the LSD trip. But of course you'll never mistake Porcupine Tree for Jefferson Airplane. For one thing, the production and the sound is quite modern, and you do hear plenty of '90s influences to go with '70s influences. The music has a darker, much more sinister tone, not the hippie type flower power stuff like you expect from the Airplane. The Pink Floyd comparisons are valid, the first two parts, especially features the same David Gilmour-type delayed guitar you hear on The Wall (like "Another Brick in the Wall Part 1"), with lots of ambient sounds to go with it as you expect from Porcupine Tree. The third part is much more techno-influenced, but I can understand why many might turn away from this cut, as the rhythm does stay the same throughout. The final part is mainly all ambient with yet more spoken dialog, I suspect the female narrator is the same person who also did "Not Beautiful Anymore" off Up the Downstair. People expecting some regular songs to go with the band's techno and ambient experiments might have been put off by Voyage 34, because it doesn't have regular songs.

I happen to own the most recent CD reissue, in digipak, and a new cover.

People wanting to explore the earlier PT catalog would obviously be advised to start with Up the Downstair, The Sky Moves Sideways, or Signify, but this is also worth having if you're a fan.