''Lightbulb Sun'' is the sixth 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
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
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 ...
, first released in May 2000, and later reissued in 2008 on
CD,
DVD-A
DVD-Audio (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format.
The st ...
surround sound, and vinyl.
This album, along with their prior album ''
Stupid Dream'', is considered to have a more commercial, poppier sound, as opposed to the abstract instrumental sound of their prior albums, or the heavier
metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
sound in their subsequent albums of the 2000s.
The album is divided into two parts between "Rest Will Flow" and "Hatesong". The first part concentrates more on melodic,
pop elements of
Porcupine Tree's style, while the second has a more
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 ...
character.
Writing and recording
Shortly after the album was completed, 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 ...
remarked that album was "the quickest album we ever made" (in 3 months flat) and yet still "our best work to date".
[ It was released a mere 14 months after their previous album, ''Stupid Dream''. Lyrically, Wilson had tired of writing about abstract concepts like war or religion, and felt he had the confidence to write more personal and emotional lyrics, leading to some especially negative lyrics being displayed in tracks such as "Hatesong" and "Feel So Low".][
Musically, Wilson stated he wanted to bring back some of the experimental aspects they had moved away from on ''Stupid Dream'', stating "Richard arbieriand I worked on creating some unique keyboard sounds for the album – e.g. the 'fairground' on 'How is Your Life Today?' and the 'insects' at the end of 'Russia on Ice.][ He also spoke of the influence of metal music on the album, stating, "... part of the beauty of the guitar solo on 'Where We Would Be' comes from the fact that it was played relatively straight but then fed through so many distortion and lo-fi processes that it began to fizz and disintegrate. The riffing guitars on 'Russia on Ice' are pure metal and one of the solos of 'Hatesong' I call my 'Korn solo' on account of the fact that the bottom strings on the guitar are tuned down so low that the notes can be bent several tones".][ Conversely, the band added more unconventional instruments to the compositions as well, such as the banjo, hammered dulcimers, and more string sections.][ String sections in ''Lightbulb Sun'' were arranged and produced by Dave Gregory from ]alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
band XTC
XTC were an English rock band formed in Swindon in 1972. Fronted by songwriters Andy Partridge (guitars, vocals) and Colin Moulding (bass, vocals), the band gained popularity during the rise of punk and new wave in the 1970s, later playing in ...
at Christchurch Studios, Clifton, Bristol
Clifton is both a suburb of Bristol, England, and the name of one of the city's thirty-five council wards. The Clifton ward also includes the areas of Cliftonwood and Hotwells. The eastern part of the suburb lies within the ward of Clifton Do ...
in January 2000, recorded by John Waterhouse.
Wilson describes the album as more organic sounding than his previous albums, stating that, "In a song like 'Winding Shot' he name for the first half of the track 'Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth ...'there are shades of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) were a folk rock supergroup made up of American singer-songwriters David Crosby and Stephen Stills and English singer-songwriter Graham Nash. When joined by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young as a fourth member, ...
and Nick Drake
Nicholas Rodney Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He did not find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work gradually achieved wider notice and recognit ...
, although the end result is hopefully pure Porcupine Tree. This effect is accentuated by the fact that many of the instruments and vocals on the album are much more up front and given less of a sheen than on ''Stupid Dream'' ... Organic is the word I like to use."[
]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 ...
described his approach to his keyboard playing, saying that "... Much of my keyboard experimenting took place on tracks like 'Russia on Ice', 'Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth ...', 'Feel So Low' and '4 Chords That Made a Million', while other tracks didn't seem to need a great deal of keyboards. I'm not one for playing all over a track if I can't see a genuine need for it."
Many songs from ''Lightbulb Sun'' and ''Stupid Dream'' recording sessions, that were left off their respective albums, were later released on the B-side compilations album ''Recordings
A record, recording or records may refer to:
An item or collection of data Computing
* Record (computer science), a data structure
** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity
** Boot sector or boot record, r ...
'' in 2001.
Song details
Wilson states that, while there is no unifying theme or concept behind the album, "There are at least four or five songs on that record which I call the divorce songs, the relationship songs, which are all about various stages of the splitting up a relationship, of dissolving a relationship. Russia on Ice, How Is Your Life Today, Shesmovedon, Feel So Low, I mean, the last track of the album. The period in a relationship, where the relationship is kind of... still exists, but it's in that period where, really, there is nothing left but hatred and despise - Hatesong is the other one. But then on the other hand, there are groups of songs on the album which are all about various childhood... nostalgic childhood reminisces, Lightbulb Sun and the first part of Last Chance To Evacuate Planet Earth, Where We Would Be. So there are kind of groups of songs. And then there's a couple of songs that don't have any relation to anything else. Four Chords That Made A Million doesn't have any relation to anything else on the album, or anything else I've ever written. It's just that."
The tracks "Four Chords That Made a Million", "Where We Would Be" and "Russia on Ice" were premiered during the '' Stupid Dream'' tour in 1999, several months before Lightbulb Sun's release.
The track "Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled" features a speech by the leader of the Heaven's Gate religious cult. This U.S. cult believed that they were from another planet and only visiting Earth. In order to return to their own "dimension" before Earth was "recycled", such extraterrestrial entities must find each other and commit mass suicide. The words are taken from the video they made before killing themselves to explain to the rest of the world why they had done it.
The track "The Rest Will Flow" is slower on the remaster, due to having been sped up from its originally recorded speed in the original master in order to make it more "radio-friendly". It originally was in danger of being left off the album altogether, as some band members questioned if it fit in with the rest of the album, but Wilson ultimately kept it on, arguing that it had "single potential".[ The song was in fact intended to be the album's third single, scheduled for October 2000 release, but it was cancelled for undisclosed reasons.
The song "Feel So Low" was re-recorded in 2004 by ]Blackfield
Blackfield is a collaborative music project by the English musician and founder of Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, and Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen. Together, six albums have been released under the moniker. The first two records, ''Black ...
, which is a project that consists of Porcupine Tree's 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 ...
and Israeli singer/songwriter Aviv Geffen
Aviv Geffen ( he, אביב גפן, born 10 May 1973) is an Israeli rock musician, singer, songwriter and the son of writer and poet Yehonatan Geffen and Nurit Makover, brother of actress Shira Geffen, and an alumnus of Rimon School of Jazz and Co ...
. The first verse of that version was sung in Hebrew by Geffen. This version only made it to the vinyl edition of the first Blackfield album. Later live renditions of this track by Blackfield were sung entirely in English but differed significantly from the Porcupine Tree original, as they added a long, heavy instrumental section at the end.
Wilson believes that the track "Buying New Soul", which was later only released on the b-side compilation ''Recordings'' and the 2008 reissue of the album, probably would have been included on the original release of the album had it been written and completed a few months earlier.
Track listing
All tracks by Wilson
Wilson may refer to:
People
* Wilson (name)
** List of people with given name Wilson
** List of people with surname Wilson
* Wilson (footballer, 1927–1998), Brazilian manager and defender
* Wilson (footballer, born 1984), full name Wilson Ro ...
except "Hatesong" (Edwin
The name Edwin means "rich friend". It comes from the Old English elements "ead" (rich, blessed) and "ƿine" (friend). The original Anglo-Saxon form is Eadƿine, which is also found for Anglo-Saxon figures.
People
* Edwin of Northumbria (died ...
, Wilson) and "Russia on Ice" (Barbieri Barbieri is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Alberto Barbieri, Argentine academic
* Antonio María Barbieri (1892–1979), Uruguayan Cardinal
* Anthony Barbieri (born 1963), American writer and performer
* Domenico ...
, Edwin, Maitland
Maitland is an English and Scottish surname. It arrived in Britain after the Norman conquest of 1066. There are two theories about its source. It is either a nickname reference to "bad temper/disposition" (Old French, ''Maltalent''; Anglo Norm ...
, Wilson). Arrangements by Porcupine Tree.
2008 Reissues
A reissue of ''Lightbulb Sun'' was released on 21 April 2008 through Kscope
Kscope is an independent record label that is part of Snapper Music, and a sister-label of Peaceville. It is dedicated to artists in the progressive rock genre. The label has released albums by Steven Wilson and his projects Porcupine Tree (m ...
as 2 disc set; or a 3 disc set for the first 5,000 pre-ordered copies. Disc one is a CD containing a remastered version of the original album, while disc two is a DVD-A containing the album remixed into 5.1 surround sound. Disc 2 also contains three bonus tracks at the end: "Disappear", "Buying New Soul", and "Cure for Optimism", which were recorded during the same sessions.[ A limited edition third disc contains two instrumental tracks: "Novak", 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 ...
to the original 7" "Shesmovedon
"Shesmovedon" (pronounced as "She's Moved On") is a single by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, released in July 2000, from the ''Lightbulb Sun'' album. It came in three forms: a regular CD, a limited-version CD (2,000 copies) and a 7 ...
" single; and "Buying New Soul (Instrumental Backing Track)", the original version of "Buying New Soul", with 4 minutes more music that were cut at the same time as the vocals were overdubbed.
A double vinyl
Vinyl may refer to:
Chemistry
* Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer
* Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation
* Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry
* Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl m ...
edition of the remaster was released through Tonefloat on 8 July 2008, in memory of Michael Piper, a member of the Porcupine Tree crew
A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard. The word has nautical resonances: the tasks involve ...
, founder of the Gates of Dawn record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
, who died in April 2008. It was available in a limited run of 1,000 numbered copies on 180 grams coloured vinyl in gatefold picture sleeve and a regular edition on 180 grams black vinyl in gatefold picture sleeve.
Reception
Reception for the album has been largely positive. ''Classic Rock
Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, primar ...
'' magazine described the album as "an album of stunning songs and startling musicianship… breathtaking." ''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 ...
'' praised the album's quality and its more commercial direction, and called the tracks "Feel So Low" and "The Rest Will Flow" "flat out two of Wilson's best tunes anywhere." ''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 ...
'' praised the album as an "incredible work that shows the vast amount of ideas and amazing gift of songwriting that Steven Wilson possessed in the late 1990's." They note that ''Lightbulb Sun'' bridges the gap between the band's "spacey progressive past and their metallic, riffy future." ''ArtistDirect'' warned that while it is different than later Porcupine Tree releases such as ''Fear of a Blank Planet
''Fear of a Blank Planet'' is the ninth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree and their best selling before 2009's '' The Incident''. It was released on 16 April 2007 in the UK and the rest of Europe by Roadrunner, 24 A ...
'', and conventional 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 ...
in general, "Porcupine Tree achieves something altogether more enjoyable here. And, while audiophiles may find the dense harmonies and musical arrangements intriguing in surround sound, the strength of Lightbulb Sun is in melancholic melodies that would sound every bit as good in mono." ''The Real Musician'' music website echoed similar sentiments, and considered it to be "the last 'old' Porcupine Tree cd" (prior to their move into a more metal direction with 2002's ''In Absentia
is Latin for absence. , a legal term, is Latin for "in the absence" or "while absent".
may also refer to:
* Award in absentia
* Declared death in absentia, or simply, death in absentia, legally declared death without a body
* Election in absen ...
''), and continued "Out of that old band, Lightbulb Sun is the very best album they created".
Many reviewers felt the album sounded similar to the work of Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
. The album has also been praised for being more accessible than most progressive rock, with Bill Kopp of ''Musoscribe'' stating "''Lightbulb Sun'' is, like all (Porcupine Tree), really, very accessible stuff. In many ways, Porcupine Tree can serve as a listener's entree into a heretofore unexplored genre: if you're a rock fan but not so into prog, (it) can ease you in gently. If...you're no metal fan, the band ... can show you the benefits of that genre without going all Metallica
Metallica is an American heavy metal band. The band was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles by vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...
on you."
In October 2011, it was awarded a gold certification from the Independent Music Companies Association
The Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA), originally the Independent Music Publishers and Labels Association, is a non-profit trade association established in 2000 to help European independent record labels represent their agenda a ...
(IMPALA), which indicated sales in excess of 75,000 copies throughout Europe.
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 ...
– vocals
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...
, guitars
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
, piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
, mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...
, hammered dulcimer
The hammered dulcimer (also called the hammer dulcimer) is a percussion-stringed instrument which consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who in more trad ...
, samples, banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
, harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
, production
*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 ...
– synthesizers
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
, hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...
, fender rhodes
The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, th ...
, clavinet
The Clavinet is an electrically amplified clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds by a rubber pad striking a point on a tension ...
, mellotron
*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 ...
– bass, drum machine, guimbri
The sintir ( ar, سنتير), also known as the guembri (), gimbri or hejhouj or Garaya in Hausa language, is a three stringed skin-covered bass plucked lute used by the Gnawa people. It is approximately the size of a guitar, with a body car ...
*Chris Maitland
Chris Maitland (born 13 May 1964) is an English drummer.
Maitland was born in Cambridge, England. After being the drummer for No-Man on their Autumn 1993 tour (and playing on two tracks on their ''Flowermouth'' album), Maitland was asked b ...
– drums, backing vocals
;Additional musicians
*Stuart Gordon – violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
, viola
The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...
*Nick Parry – cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
*Eli Hibit – backup rhythm guitar
;The Minerva String Quartet:
*Katy Latham – violin
*Lisa Betteridge – violin
*Sarah Heins – viola
*Emmeline Brewer – cello
;Other personnel
*Chris Blair – mastering
*John Foxx
John Foxx (born Dennis Leigh; 26 September 1948) is an English singer, musician, artist, photographer, graphic designer, writer, teacher and lecturer. He was the original lead singer of the new wave band Ultravox, before leaving to embark on a ...
– cover photograph, additional photography
*Luigi Colasanti Antonelli – group portraits, other photography
References
External links
Porcupine Tree Official Website
The complete Steven Wilson discography
Steven Wilson Headquarters
Porcupine Tree and related news
{{Authority control
Porcupine Tree albums
2000 albums
Snapper Music albums
Transmission (record label) albums
Kscope albums