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Started in 1987 by Steven Wilson as a tongue-in-cheek homage to his boyhood heroes Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree gradually developed its own character and eventually eclipsed Wilson's main band of the time, No-Man. Wilson launched the band in Hertfordshire, England, and invented a suitably bizarre back story that painted the group as lost 1970s psychedelic legends when releasing their first cassette, 1989's Tarquin's Seaweed Farm. Fusing dance and rock, the band's 1993 album Up The Downstair won them a bigger audience. They began touring heavily, resulting in the expansive, progressive album The Sky Moves Sideways in 1995. This helped establish the band in the US and they finally hit the mainstream in 1996 with Signify. Sophisticated string arrangements marked their Lightbulb Sun album (2000) and, with Gavin Harrison replacing drummer Chris Maitland, Porcupine Tree achieved their biggest success with In Absentia in 2002. They had a rare hit single in 2005 with "Shallow" (from the cinematic Deadwing album) and their ambitious Fear Of A Blank Planet (2007) - inspired by the Bret Easton Ellis novel Lunar Park - included guest appearances by Rush's Alex Lifeson and King Crimson's Robert Fripp. Following a long hiatus from the recording studio, Porcupine Tree reconvened during the early 2020s and released their eleventh album, Closer/Continuation, in 2022. The new release debuted at Number 2 in the UK, an all-time high for the band.
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