Nil Recurring

There were those who failed to comprehend Porcupine Tree’s musical transformation, from the elegantly crafted pop rock of 2000’s Lightbulb Sun into a fiery, fearsome progressive metal act in the space of two years. Consequently, those detractors dismissed In Absentia as a cynical shift of musical genre to hop onto the then-burgeoning prog metal scene, led by the likes of Dream Theater and Opeth. Of course, such blinkered, keyboard punditry failed to appreciate the one aspect of Porcupine Tree that was at the core of their existence – their deliberate desire to avoid repetition, predictability and having their creativity curtailed by the confines of a debilitating genre box. It’s an attitude that has continued to infuse Steven Wilson’s solo works, and one that appears likely to continue.

For Porcupine Tree, it all began in Wilson’s bedroom in Hemel Hempstead where he recorded two psychedelic-influenced cassettes, which would eventually be released as . Following the release of the trancey in 1993, Wilson soon began to realise that there was a live market for his music. With Richard Barbieri, Colin Edwin