Tarquin's Seaweed Farm:Porcupine Tree

Artist: Porcupine Tree

Date Released: Early 1989

Label: Independently Released

Produced By: Steven Wilson

Tracklisting:
 * 1) Music For The Head (Here) (2:44)
 * 2) Jupiter Island (6:09)
 * 3) Nun's Cleavage (Left) (2:45)
 * 4) Clarinet Vignette (1:18)
 * 5) Nun's Cleavage (Right) (1:09)
 * 6) Space Transmission (2:56)
 * 7) Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip (0:28)
 * 8) Radioactive Toy (5:49)
 * 9) Towel (3:33)
 * 10) Wastecoat (1:10)
 * 11) Mute (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) (8:06)
 * 12) Music For The Head (There) (1:24)
 * 13) No Reason To Live, No Reason To Die (11:09)
 * 14) Daughters In Excess (6:46)
 * 15) The Cross / Hole / Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape (20:39)

Review: Not bad for a what was then a joke project from Steven Wilson. I realize this early cassette release don't get the respect of their proper albums. Many of these cuts ended up on On the Sunday of Life..., and what didn't make it here ended up on the limited editional  Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape album. All the cuts from "Music for the Head" right up to "Radioactive Toy" should be familiar to anyone who owns On the Sunday of Life..., although this version of "Radioactive Toy" is the original edit, which is shorter and different synth sounds, but musically it's still the same. "Nun's Cleavage (Left)/"Clarinet Vignette"/"Nun's Cleavage (Right)" is actually "Third Eye Surfer", complete with jazzy drumming from John Marshall, ex-Soft Machine. There's some nice instrumental pieces like "Mute", that actually sound like a precursor to Up the Downstair (similar guitar work), while "No Reason to Live, No Reason to Die" has a Pink Floyd-like feel to it. It's supposedly recorded live and you hear audience cheers, but I wasn't aware of PT touring until sometime later, after  The Sky Moves Sideways (when Steven Wilson decided to assemble a real band for that purpose of touring). "Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape" is the closing piece, I have to admit it sounds really cheesy at first, but by the middle part, it gets darker, with spoken dialog, and for some reason it ends up reminding me of  Space Bandits-era Hawkwind, although that album didn't see the light of day for another year (1990). Not nearly as bad as many make it out to be (just like On the Sunday of Life), unfortunately this isn't readily available, unlike  On the Sunday of Life, because it was released as a privately issued cassette, and later as a limited edition cassette by Delerium, once that company got started in '91.