''Signify'' is the fourth studio
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
by
British progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
band
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree are an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned critical acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became ...
. It was released in September 1996 and later re-released in 2003 with a second disc of demos, which had previously been released on the
b-side
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...
cassette tape
The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...
''
Insignificance'',
[ ] and a third time, on vinyl, on 9 May 2011. It was the first album that frontman
Steven Wilson
Steven John Wilson (born 3 November 1967) is an English musician. He is the founder, guitarist, lead vocalist and songwriter of the rock band Porcupine Tree, as well as being a member of several other bands, including Blackfield, Storm Corrosio ...
recorded with the band on board from the beginning; previous albums had been essentially solo efforts with occasional help from other musicians.
Background
Writing and recording
''Signify'' was the first Porcupine Tree album recorded as a full band unit, rather than primarily by frontman
Steven Wilson
Steven John Wilson (born 3 November 1967) is an English musician. He is the founder, guitarist, lead vocalist and songwriter of the rock band Porcupine Tree, as well as being a member of several other bands, including Blackfield, Storm Corrosio ...
with occasional assistance from other musicians, primarily the ones who would become full-time band members as of this album;
Richard Barbieri
Richard Barbieri (born 30 November 1957) is an English musician, composer and sound designer. Originally a member of new wave band Japan (and their brief 1989–1991 reincarnation as Rain Tree Crow), more recently he is known as the keyboard ...
,
Colin Edwin
Colin Edwin is an Australian musician, specialising in fretted and fretless guitar, fretless bass guitar, double bass and Sintir, guimbri.
Edwin first came to public attention as a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, i ...
, and
Chris Maitland.
In 1995, the band would alternate between touring in support of their last release, ''
The Sky Moves Sideways
''The Sky Moves Sideways'' is the third studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in January 1995.
Background
''The Sky Moves Sideways'' has been compared to Pink Floyd's '' Wish You Were Here'' because of th ...
'', and writing and recording the album, with Wilson describing it as "The album was recorded in quite a piecemeal way with tracks written and recorded in batches of 2 or 3, followed by gaps of up to 3 months." As such, a number of the songs, albeit in early forms, were debuted live before the album's release.
Edwin would admit that while Wilson allowed him a lot of freedom with his bass parts, sometimes Wilson would simply replace his demo takes with Wilson's own work on the final version, as was the case with the tracks "Sever" and "Dark Matter". Barbieri's goals for his contributions during the ''Signify'' sessions were "...to use what in isolation would be a weird and abstract sound or texture and to make it work in the context of a pop song".
Wilson said of the recording process:
"''Signify'' was slightly odd in the way it was recorded in the sense that although it is a band album, because we were never able to actually all be in the same room at the same time, because of physical limitations, with the exception of one track, "Intermediate Jesus", which was done outside, I tended to demo the tracks to a fairly high level and they would just replace the parts that I'd played on synthesizers with the real thing. So there wasn't a great deal of input from the other guys."
Sound
In addition to the change in sound coming from it being the first collaborative, full band album as a whole, the album marked a transition in genre as well.
The band's first three albums were characterized as being
psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...
and
experimental
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...
space rock
Space rock is a music genre characterized by loose and lengthy song structures centered on instrumental textures that typically produce a hypnotic, otherworldly sound. It may feature distorted and reverberation-laden guitars, minimal drummin ...
. This album still retains these qualities, but at the same time, moves closer to a more structured, radio-friendly and commercial sound, a style of
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
that the band explored in a much stronger way in the band's subsequent albums ''
Stupid Dream
''Stupid Dream'' is the fifth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. It was first released in March 1999, and then re-released on 15 May 2006 due to the band's rising popularity on major record label Lava Records with thei ...
'' and ''
Lightbulb Sun
''Lightbulb Sun'' is the sixth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in May 2000, and later reissued in 2008 on CD, DVD-A surround sound, and vinyl.
This album, along with their prior album '' Stupid Drea ...
''.
The album has been described as "...the end of an era, while simultaneously ushering in the dawn of a new age...It contains sprawling, vague instrumental tunes as well as more straightforward, cleverly written songs with a clear-cut song structure. A precursor to ''Stupid Dream'' and an epilogue to Porcupine Tree's psychedelic past."
PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...
later reflected that the album would become to be known as the band's
krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock
Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments ...
album.
Song details
The title track of the album, "Signify", actually originated as a demo cover version of a song by the krautrock band
Neu!
Neu! (; German for "New!"; styled in block capitals) were a West German krautrock band formed in Düsseldorf in 1971 by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother following their departure from Kraftwerk. The group's albums were produced by Conny Plank, w ...
titled "Hallogallo", but upon the band experimenting, evolved into an original song.
['' Insignificance'' liner notes, Steven Wilson, 1997.] The album was originally supposed to end with the track "Signify II", but was later trimmed off to shorten the album's overall run-time. The song is still based on the riff from the title track and "Hallogallo", but is less raw, has different segments, and extends to an almost doubled length. It would be released eventually under the compilation album ''
Stars Die: The Delerium Years 1991-1997'', and parts of it would be played live in conjunction with the title track, such as is shown on the live album ''
Coma Divine
A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...
''.
The track "Every Home is Wired" reflect Wilson's attitude toward the internet at the time, while the track "Dark Matter" was in reference to the dark side of touring in support of album releases. "Every Home is Wired" consists of 37 separate overdubbed vocal tracks. The track "Light Mass Prayers" was written by drummer
Chris Maitland and actually features no drumming at all. Demo versions of the tracks "Signify", "Waiting", "Sever" and "Dark Matter" were all included on the b-side and demo compilation album ''Insignificance'', the latter under the title "Sever Tomorrow" and "Dark Origins". Another demo from the era, "Wake as Gun," would ultimately be reused in Wilson's other project,
No-Man
No-Man are an English art pop duo, formed in 1987 as No Man Is an Island (Except the Isle of Man) by singer Tim Bowness and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson. The band has so far produced seven studio albums and a number of singles/outtakes ...
, for the song "Jack the Sax" (from the 1997 EP ''
Dry Cleaning Ray
''Dry Cleaning Ray'' is a mini-album released by British Art rock band No-Man. It was intended to be a companion release to ''Wild Opera'' album, compiling reinterpretations and original songs stemming from the ''Wild Opera'' sessions.
In keepin ...
''); in another connection between the bands, the interlude track "Pagan" on ''Signify'' uses the same operatic sample previously used in the ending of "Colours" from No-Man's ''
Lovesighs – An Entertainment
''Lovesighs – An Entertainment'' was a mini-album released by No-Man in 1992 on the One Little Indian label. It comprised a collection of the band's singles and b-sides from 1990 and 1991.
An ambitious and diverse collection of sensual songs a ...
''.
Reception
Reception for the album has been mostly positive.
Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic is an American music community website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites. The format of the website is unusual in that it includes both professional and amateur c ...
gave ''Signify'' five out of five stars, applauding the album as "a masterpiece in modern psychedelia", writing that it "exudes a raw feeling of musical passion and pure trippy atmosphere: the soaring, expertly written vocal harmonies, engulfing instrumental pieces, unsettling samples, and puzzling abstract lyrics."
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
gave the album four out of five stars, praising the album as "... the next great step forward for Porcupine Tree, a distinct advancement in how well the foursome could completely rock out as well as find its own narcotic style of
ambient
Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to:
Music and sound
* Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds
* Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere
* ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby
* ...
exploration...For all that Wilson may once again be singing obliquely on the pressures and nature of end-of-century life, he still does so in an engagingly left-of-center way."
Track listing
''Insignificance'' and second disc
In 1997, a collection of
b-sides and demos from the ''Signify'' sessions, titled ''Insignificance'', was released on
cassette tape
The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...
.
When ''Signify'' was reissued in 2003 on
Delerium Records
Delerium Records was a British independent record label, that specialised in psychedelic music and which existed from 1991 to 2003, and was notable in promoting the careers of bands including Porcupine Tree, Ozric Tentacles, Kava Kava (band), ...
and in 2004 on
Snapper Music
Snapper Music is an independent record label founded in 1996 by former head of Castle Communications Jon Beecher, Dougie Dudgeon and funded by Mark Levinson from Palan Music Publishing. In 1999, Snapper broke away from its Palan parent company ...
, ''Insignificance'' was packaged as a second disc of ''Signify'', with a slightly altered track list.
The later re-releases do not contain the tracks "Door to the River" or "Insignificance", as they were included with the rest of the full band tracks on ''Metanoia''. Still, the compilation retains ten tracks through the inclusion of the track "Dark Origins" and the indexing of Hallogallo/Signify into two separate tracks (despite still running continuously from one to the other).
Other tracks
B-sides from the era, including "The Sound of No-One Listening" (from the "Waiting" single and the original vinyl pressing of ''Signify'') and "Fuse the Sky" (a remix of the title track from ''
The Sky Moves Sideways
''The Sky Moves Sideways'' is the third studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in January 1995.
Background
''The Sky Moves Sideways'' has been compared to Pink Floyd's '' Wish You Were Here'' because of th ...
'' released on an ambient compilation) appear in addition to the aforementioned "Signify II" and "Colourflow in Mind" (an album outtake) on the compilation album ''
Stars Die: The Delerium Years 1991–1997''.
Additionally, an album of studio improvisations from that period, called ''
Metanoia'', was released in 1998. The improvisational sessions contained both previously unreleased material and material that was shaped into previously released songs; a track called "Metanoia I/Intermediate Jesus", an over 14-minute long freeform jam, was edited down to serve as the main backing track for the song "Intermediate Jesus". The tracks "Door to the River" and "Insignificance" are also from these sessions and included on the release, likely the reason why they were removed from future versions of ''Insignificance''.
The album notes of ''Insignificance'' has Wilson making references to a never recorded track called "Cryogenics". It was based on "Mesmer I" from ''
Metanoia'' (it also contained part of "Wake as Gun") and was performed live by the band once in 1995.
A shorter version of the song was played during the Italian Tour in early 1997. It was recorded in Rome (with other material used to compile ''Coma Divine'' live album) but never mixed or released properly as the band weren't happy with the performance.
[ ] The live recording of "Cryogenics" was later restored and released on 2020's EP ''Coma: Coda (Rome 1997)'' which made available through the official Porcupine Tree Bandcamp page.
Personnel
;Band
*
Steven Wilson
Steven John Wilson (born 3 November 1967) is an English musician. He is the founder, guitarist, lead vocalist and songwriter of the rock band Porcupine Tree, as well as being a member of several other bands, including Blackfield, Storm Corrosio ...
– guitars, piano, organ, mellotron, samples, tapes, banshee guitar, drum programming, chimes, musical boxes, vocals
*
Richard Barbieri
Richard Barbieri (born 30 November 1957) is an English musician, composer and sound designer. Originally a member of new wave band Japan (and their brief 1989–1991 reincarnation as Rain Tree Crow), more recently he is known as the keyboard ...
– synthesisers, Hammond organ, Prophet V/System 700 electronics, piano, tapes, texture, sequencers
*
Colin Edwin
Colin Edwin is an Australian musician, specialising in fretted and fretless guitar, fretless bass guitar, double bass and Sintir, guimbri.
Edwin first came to public attention as a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, i ...
– electric bass, double bass
*
Chris Maitland – drums, cymbals, percussion, vocal harmonies on "Waiting Phase 1" and "Sever", drum loops, keyboards and voices on "Light Mass Prayers"
;Additional
*Terumi – voices (track 1)
*Produced and mixed by Steven Wilson.
*Mastered by Chris Thorpe at Serendipity
*Art & Design by John Blackford.
References
External links
Porcupine Tree Official Website''Signify''at
Snapper Music
Snapper Music is an independent record label founded in 1996 by former head of Castle Communications Jon Beecher, Dougie Dudgeon and funded by Mark Levinson from Palan Music Publishing. In 1999, Snapper broke away from its Palan parent company ...
{{Authority control
Porcupine Tree albums
1996 albums