Nil Recurring
Encyclopedia
Nil Recurring is an EP
by British progressive rock
band Porcupine Tree
, released on 17 September 2007 through the band's online store
. The mini-album is composed of four tracks written during the Fear of a Blank Planet
recording sessions and completed over the summer of 2007, of which one was a track originally composed for Fear of a Blank Planet but later dropped from the final tracklist.
Nil Recurring entered the UK Top 30 Independent Label Albums
at #8 and remains #1 EP of 2007 on Rate Your Music
.
on July 2006 to work on new material for Fear of a Blank Planet album. At the time, two songs ("My Ashes" and "Normal") were already written. Those sessions produced the album songs (except for "Way Out of Here
") plus four more songs of which three would not quite fit the concept, the only one the band thought that could make the way into the record at this moment was "Cheating the Polygraph", that's the reason why they performed it during the tour on support of the Arriving Somewhere... DVD.
But the band later decided none of the four songs were up to the standards of the record, as they weren't properly developed yet, and there was a policy not to make the album over fifty minutes long. So the four tracks were mixed between June and August 2007 to make the Nil Recurring EP. "Normal" was composed entirely by Steven Wilson
. He later reworked the song, simplifying its structure to transform it into the song "Sentimental". Barbieri summarized the album as "an EP that’s going to be of some value to the fans instead of just a couple of new tracks and some things they’ve already got."
, and was limited to 5000 copies in a fold-out digipak. It was originally decided to sell 3000 copies through the band's online store
and sell the remaining 2000 at shows on the forthcoming tour, but the initial run of pre-orders through the online store were sold out in a period of 24 hours so the band quickly put out more copies, whether for purchase or download in MP3
/FLAC
formats at a very cheap cost; the downloadable version includes exclusive printable artwork. A Japanese edition was released through WHD in late October 2007 and includes the radio edit of "Fear of a Blank Planet
" as a bonus track. A second (unlimited) super jewel box (inside a cardboard slipcover) edition was released on 18 February 2008 on Peaceville Records
.
, explained the meaning of the EP's title and commented about its relationship with the concept of Fear of a Blank Planet:
set a Nil Recurring minisite
related to the issue of the EP, including full audio streamings for each track. The video for an edit of the track "Normal" was initially intended to be posted on 15 February 2008 but its release date was moved forward to 9 February 2008. It is now available for viewing through the minisite.
The site is available in four languages: English
, German
, French
and Italian
.
on the DVDA
version of Fear of a Blank Planet.
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
by British progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
band Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree is a progressive rock band formed by Steven Wilson in 1987 in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. Their music is difficult to categorise, being associated with both psychedelic rock and progressive rock, yet having been influenced by trance, krautrock and ambient due to Steven...
, released on 17 September 2007 through the band's online store
Burning Shed
Burning Shed is an independent record label established in April 2001 by musicians Tim Bowness and Peter Chilvers, in association with duplication company manager and former Noisebox Records boss, Pete Morgan....
. The mini-album is composed of four tracks written during the Fear of a Blank Planet
Fear of a Blank Planet
Fear of a Blank Planet is the ninth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree and their best selling . Released by Roadrunner on 16 April 2007 in the UK and Europe, 24 April 2007 in the United States through Atlantic, 25 April 2007 in Japan on WHD and 1 May 2007 in Canada by WEA...
recording sessions and completed over the summer of 2007, of which one was a track originally composed for Fear of a Blank Planet but later dropped from the final tracklist.
Nil Recurring entered the UK Top 30 Independent Label Albums
UK Indie Chart
The UK Independent Chart or Indie Chart is a chart of the best-selling independent record releases in the UK.- History :In the wake of punk, small record labels began to spring up, as an outlet for artists that were unwilling to sign contracts with major record companies, or were not considered...
at #8 and remains #1 EP of 2007 on Rate Your Music
Rate Your Music
Rate Your Music is a metadata database where musical albums, EPs, singles, videos, bootlegs, and movies are rated and reviewed by users. This data is then used to generate recommendations for users and to create rated lists of albums...
.
Writing and recording
The band met in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on July 2006 to work on new material for Fear of a Blank Planet album. At the time, two songs ("My Ashes" and "Normal") were already written. Those sessions produced the album songs (except for "Way Out of Here
Way Out of Here
"Way Out of Here" is a song by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, and the fifth track from their ninth studio album, Fear of a Blank Planet. It is remarkable for being the only full-band composition of the record. A promo two-track single was released by Roadrunner Records intended for...
") plus four more songs of which three would not quite fit the concept, the only one the band thought that could make the way into the record at this moment was "Cheating the Polygraph", that's the reason why they performed it during the tour on support of the Arriving Somewhere... DVD.
But the band later decided none of the four songs were up to the standards of the record, as they weren't properly developed yet, and there was a policy not to make the album over fifty minutes long. So the four tracks were mixed between June and August 2007 to make the Nil Recurring EP. "Normal" was composed entirely by Steven Wilson
Steven Wilson
Steven John Wilson is an English musician, best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
. He later reworked the song, simplifying its structure to transform it into the song "Sentimental". Barbieri summarized the album as "an EP that’s going to be of some value to the fans instead of just a couple of new tracks and some things they’ve already got."
Release
The first press of the album was issued on Porcupine Tree's own label, TransmissionTransmission (record label)
Transmission is an independent record label set by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree in 2003. It was named after an information service by mail of the same name the band had during the nineties...
, and was limited to 5000 copies in a fold-out digipak. It was originally decided to sell 3000 copies through the band's online store
Burning Shed
Burning Shed is an independent record label established in April 2001 by musicians Tim Bowness and Peter Chilvers, in association with duplication company manager and former Noisebox Records boss, Pete Morgan....
and sell the remaining 2000 at shows on the forthcoming tour, but the initial run of pre-orders through the online store were sold out in a period of 24 hours so the band quickly put out more copies, whether for purchase or download in MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
/FLAC
FLAC
FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...
formats at a very cheap cost; the downloadable version includes exclusive printable artwork. A Japanese edition was released through WHD in late October 2007 and includes the radio edit of "Fear of a Blank Planet
Fear of a Blank Planet (song)
"Fear of a Blank Planet" is a Porcupine Tree song. It appears as the first track on the album of the same name. A promo single of the song was released in Europe and the US, by respective record labels. Both promos contain an edited version of "Fear of a Blank Planet" with the swearing removed...
" as a bonus track. A second (unlimited) super jewel box (inside a cardboard slipcover) edition was released on 18 February 2008 on Peaceville Records
Peaceville Records
Peaceville Records is a British independent metal-oriented record label. The label was founded by Paul "Hammy" Halmshaw in 1987, in Dewsbury, England...
.
Release history
| Country | Date | Label |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... |
17 September 2007 | Transmission |
| Japan Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south... |
30 October 2007 | WHD |
| Europe Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting... |
18 February 2008 | Peaceville |
| United States United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... |
19 February 2008 | |
| Germany Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate... |
22 February 2008 |
Title and concept
Porcupine Tree's frontman, Steven WilsonSteven Wilson
Steven John Wilson is an English musician, best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
, explained the meaning of the EP's title and commented about its relationship with the concept of Fear of a Blank Planet:
“I just thought it was an interesting idea I had. I had this instrumental, and I didn’t have a title, so I called it Nil Recurring. It’s always quite hard to name instrumentals, because obviously there’s no subject matter to relate it to. I just thought the idea was quite funny. I kind of like absurd titles. I kind of have a history of having these titles that make no sense, like Up the Downstair (1993). I mean Nil Recurring is another paradox like statement. You cannot have the number nil recurring. So it’s just a bit of fun really. And of course, it seemed to fit in with the lyrical concept of some of the other pieces that featured on Fear of a Blank Planet. It was that idea of blankness, of not being there or negativity that helped gave that piece, and the E.P. its title.”
Song details
- The track "Nil Recurring" is an instrumental piece and features King CrimsonKing CrimsonKing Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
guitarist Robert FrippRobert FrippRobert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
on lead guitar. Gavin HarrisonGavin HarrisonGavin Harrison is a British drummer and percussionist. He is best known for playing with the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree which he joined in 2002. As of 2008, he also plays with the band King Crimson....
plays "tap guitar" on this track.
- The chorus in "Normal" is musically very similar to the chorus in "Sentimental" since the latter is a further development of the former. The lyrics of both songs contain a response to each other: while the last verse on "Normal" says "Wish I was old and a little sentimental", the first verse on "Sentimental" speaks "I never wanna be old and I don't want dependence". The song has also a lyrical reference to the song "Anesthetize" from Fear of a Blank Planet in the phrase "I do a good impression of myself". According to Wilson's statement in the live performance We Lost the SkylineWe Lost the SkylineWe Lost the Skyline is a live recording by Porcupine Tree, recorded during an in-store performance at Park Avenue CDs in Orlando, Florida, with 200 fans in attendance. Although it was originally planned that the full band would play, lack of space dictated that only the two guitarists/singers...
, the song was written in Tel-Aviv.
- The song "Cheating the Polygraph" debuted on the 2006 promotional tour for the Arriving Somewhere DVD, though its title was not revealed at the time. It was later dropped out of the tracklist for Fear of a Blank Planet so the band wrote "Way Out of Here" to replace the gap. On the LP version of Fear of a Blank Planet, "Cheating the Polygraph" is placed between "My Ashes" and "Anesthetize".
- Ben Coleman contributes electric violin to "What Happens Now?", having previously worked with Steven Wilson as part of No-ManNo-ManNo-Man are a British art-pop duo formed in 1987 as No Man Is An Island by singer Tim Bowness and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson . The band has so far produced six studio albums and a number of singles/outtakes collections...
. "What Happens Now?" also includes a riff featured in "Anesthetize", and lyrically it references Fear of a Blank Planet track "My Ashes." During live performances Coleman's parts are played on the guitar by touring guitarist John Wesley (guitarist)John Wesley (guitarist)John Wesley is an American singer, songwriter and guitar player. John Wesley's professional music career began in the early 1980s in the Tampa, Florida area where he founded 1991 Southwestern Music Conference's showcase act Autodrive along with drummer/producer Mark Prator...
.
Mini site
Peaceville RecordsPeaceville Records
Peaceville Records is a British independent metal-oriented record label. The label was founded by Paul "Hammy" Halmshaw in 1987, in Dewsbury, England...
set a Nil Recurring minisite
Minisite
A minisite is a website by which companies offer information about one specific product or product group. Typically, a minisite is enhanced by various multimedia content, such as an animated, narrated introduction, and accompanied by a visual scheme which complements the product well.For example, a...
related to the issue of the EP, including full audio streamings for each track. The video for an edit of the track "Normal" was initially intended to be posted on 15 February 2008 but its release date was moved forward to 9 February 2008. It is now available for viewing through the minisite.
The site is available in four languages: English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
Track listing
In addition to the standard version, the EP is also available in 5.1 Surround Sound5.1 surround sound
5.1 is the common name for six channel surround sound multichannel audio systems. 5.1 is now the most commonly used layout in both commercial cinemas and home theaters. It uses five full bandwidth channels and one low frequency enhancement channel . Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II, DTS, and...
on the DVDA
DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio is not intended to be a video delivery format and is not the same as video DVDs containing concert films or music videos....
version of Fear of a Blank Planet.
Personnel
- Steven WilsonSteven WilsonSteven John Wilson is an English musician, best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
– vocals, guitars, piano, keyboards - Richard BarbieriRichard BarbieriRichard Barbieri, is an English synthesiser player, keyboardist and composer. He was educated at Catford Boys' School, Catford, South East London...
– keyboards and synthesizers - Colin EdwinColin EdwinColin Edwin is a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, where he plays both fretted and fretless bass guitar as well as double bass and guimbri. He joined the band in December 1993...
– bass guitars - Gavin HarrisonGavin HarrisonGavin Harrison is a British drummer and percussionist. He is best known for playing with the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree which he joined in 2002. As of 2008, he also plays with the band King Crimson....
– drums, percussion, tapped guitar on “Nil Recurring”
Guests
- Robert FrippRobert FrippRobert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
– lead guitar on “Nil Recurring” - Ben Coleman – electric violin on “What Happens Now?”
Chart performance
| Chart | Entry |
|---|---|
| UK Indie Chart UK Indie Chart The UK Independent Chart or Indie Chart is a chart of the best-selling independent record releases in the UK.- History :In the wake of punk, small record labels began to spring up, as an outlet for artists that were unwilling to sign contracts with major record companies, or were not considered... |
8 |
| Finland | 5 |
| France Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique The Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique is the inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the French record industry... |
114 |
| Germany | 100 |
External links
- Porcupine Tree
- Nil Recurring mini site on Peaceville