[nicola]

PORCUPINE TREE REUNION



... finally clarified the mystery of Colin Edwin's exclusion


......finally the new Porcupine Tree album is out and now it's been almost 2 months .... Certainly not at the level of their best albums but it contains some excellent tracks that perhaps discount the fact that they have been created occasionally over many years especially without help from live performances which instead from next autumn will help them find a renewed creativity. '….

Returning to Reunion
…. Steven Wilson has never been a great communicator, he has always preferred to let his compositions speak ... by his admission not interested in being part of a group and has lived the first experience of porcupine trees with almost tolerance ... he certainly loves not having any bond conscious of his abilities ... .. and this was Steven Wilson until before the reunion ... now after the reunion he appears completely transformed
before he was the only one who composed the music for the interviews and the whole organization now demands that a group work be done and accepts much more willingly the fact of being part of a group that also frees him from many tasks that he held in the first experience all for himself and also had to suffer criticism from the other components
in recent times he is giving many interviews and just ask him a question to receive very long answers ... maybe it would be better if he explained less in the sense that when for example he says that Porcupine Tree have never separated and that the tracks of the last album were written during the 12 years of their absence you have to be very believers almost at a religious level to be able to think that this is really so ... one thing is certain .. Steven Wilson in his egocentrism has a weakness called Gavin Harrison considers him the best musician of the group and from the very close collaboration of the two years ago that the reunion started which then limited itself to reincluding Richard Barbieri leaving out the bassist Colin Edwin who in an interview a few years ago asking him if he would like if the Porcupine Tree were back together he responded enthusiastically and so there were no problems or aversions towards Steven even though he had had more than a few discussions about the direction of the musical style. .... For some time the exclusion of him remained a mystery, no declaration by steven nor by colin…. and even in the first press conference of the reunion steven had warned that no questions should be asked about Colin's exclusion ... but finally steven has decided to clarify the mystery ... colin's bass was too slow we needed a way to play the bass in a more aggressive way and who better than him can do such a thing…. So the parts of the bass in the new record were played by steven ... of course now live you will need someone who plays the bass and a guitarist and to the research he thought as he defines steven "the managing director of the group" Gavin who chose the guitarist Randy McStine (MCSTINE & MINNEMANN, LO-FI RESISTANCE) and bassist Nate Navarro (DEVIN TOWNSEND).



... ..I had finished writing and by chance I saw an interview on Under The Radar Mag by Colin Edwin that I thought he had not commented on the exclusion and instead declares that for him it was a surprise the announcement of the porcupine tree reunion of which he was a member from 1993 until their hiatus in 2010 and which was reforming without him.
Edwin reveals that he was left in the dark about the meeting until just six months before it was announced to the public, having been told that the bass for the album had already been mapped and that there was no role "left for him in the band.
.
… Colin: "We hadn't had a fight or anything, and [we were] in contact occasionally about various things - mostly reprints or weird deals, but there had been no indication or hint of any new band activities, writing sessions or any possibility of reactivation ",

and then the saddest part ... after playing for 17 years together
in 2019 Colin's group ORK was on tour with Pineapple Thief where Gavin Harrison played and did not mention anything about the recomposition

COLIN: “So it was a surprise for me in March 2021, in isolation, to get an email from Steve telling me that there is a new album and since he has already played all the bass parts there is not. 'no role for me'. Soon after, Steve's attorney gets in touch [and] I haven't had any real contact from anyone since then. "

The story seems to be over here ... but if Colin agreed to take a course in "aggressive bass" by music teacher Steve maybe there could be some possibility of a complete reunion ... at the moment the lawyers have entered the field and I see the complete reunion very difficult.