Tarquin's Seaweed Farm

Tarquin's Seaweed Farm
Studio album by Porcupine Tree
Released early 1989
Recorded Real Life: 1986–1989
Liner Notes: 1988-1989
Genre Psychedelic rock
Length 77:17
Label Independently Produced
Porcupine Tree chronology

Tarquin's Seaweed Farm
(1989)		 Love, Death & Mussolini
(1990)

Tarquin's Seaweed Farm, subtitled "Words from a Hessian Sack", is the first album to be released by Steven Wilson under the name "Porcupine Tree". It was originally a compiled cassette of experimental music made by Steven Wilson for his joke band he formed with his friend Malcom Stocks. The cassette was only sent out to a few people, but was enough to give the band a bit of fame in the UK underground music scene of the time, being picked up by the underground magazine Freakbeat. It was later released under Delerium Records in 1991 in a limited edition of 300 copies. Eventually, the tracks from this and the later Porcupine Tree album The Nostalgia Factory were compiled into what are considered Porcupine Tree's first true studio albums, On the Sunday of Life and Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape.

In 2004, this and the other two pre-Delerium cassettes were privately remixed and remastered by Steven Wilson and rereleased in a special boxset called "Footprints: Cassette Music 1988–1992". 25 copies were made and distributed to friends and family of Wilson, who also kept a copy for himself and sent some to the rest of the band.

Track listing*

(All tracks written by Steven Wilson except "Jupiter Island" written by Wilson/Duffy, "Clarinet Vignette" written by Wilson/Masters and "The Cross" written by Prince. Artwork by Alistair Campbell.)

Cassette side A

  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" -  :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

Cassette side B

  1. "No Reason to Live, No Reason to Die" - 11:09
  2. "Daughters in Excess" - 6:46
  3. "The Cross / Hole / Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape" - 20:39

Even though Porcupine Tree have only been officially active since 1987, some of these songs are older.

Credits (fiction)

Tripping Musicians Extraordinaire: