Sky Moves Sideways (Dig) [Original recording remastered]

Porcupine Tree | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 26, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Madfish Records UK
• ASIN: B0002CU4Y8
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,781 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Progressive Rock Still Exists, March 23, 2005

By 

Lonnie E. Holder "The Review's the Thing" (Columbus, Indiana, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sky Moves Sideways (Dig) (Audio CD)

Once upon a time I was hopelessly mired in the 60s and 70s with respect to rock, particularly with respect to progressive rock. Then I discovered that even though progressive rock is not accessible by radio to much of the United States, it is alive and well. In fact, as a listener could tell from this incredible two-disc CD, it is prospering and doing better than ever.

The first Porcupine Tree CD I acquired was "In Absentia," which is a phenomenal album that uses traditional progressive elements as a backdrop to highly creative compositions that often transcend any single appellation. I have yet to review "In Absentia" because it will be difficult to describe that incredible music with mere words. This CD was re-mastered from the original 1995 release and includes extra tracks, including an incredible 34:37 alternate version of "The Sky Moves Sideways." This CD has some of the elements of "In Absentia," but sounds heavily influenced by Pink Floyd (one person overhearing a song said that that song sounded like Pink Floyd though they knew it was not), with tinctures of Yes and possibly the Moody Blues.

Another reviewer said that this music is psychedelic. The first song, "The Sky Moves Sideways," which is 18:39 long, is lightly psychedelic music with sixteen lines of very psychedelic lyrics. As a brief example, here are the opening lyrics:

We lost the skyline
We stepped right off the map
Drifted in to blank space
And let the clocks relapse.

Each line is quietly repeated in an overlay that is barely heard, and then the song elevates the volume to soar on the third stanza, though the soaring is sedate and thick, gliding to the heights before realizing the heights have given way to a plateau and the music is back on earth. The song leaps from the plateau once again for a soaring journey until it reaches ground once more to begin running to percussion and synthesizer beat. A lead guitar kicks in to urge the song along, but to keep up with the long haul the lead guitars let the bass and keyboards take over. At last the instruments, flute, synthesizers, guitars, and drums, possibly more, come together to play with each other and exult in the ability to declare their presence. This song is a wonderful combination of the elements that make middle-of-the-road progressive rock fun.

Porcupine Tree jams on "Dislocated Day." The vocals are the most prominent of any song on this CD, and are also psychedelic and surreal. This song is instrumentally much more powerful as the guitars crunch and churn, the drums keep up a steady beat, and the synthesizers fill in the empty holes. All this is jammed in a telephone call intro, and hanging up at the end.

"The Moon Touches Your Shoulder" is as quiet as the previous song was raucous. The lyrics keep their poetic surrealism, and are harmonious with the instruments. Turn the lights out, lay on a soft, flat surface, and drift away with the soft synthesizers and the acoustic guitars as they take you away into the black of the night sky.

"Prepare Yourself" is a musical interlude between the last song and the nearly seventeen minute long second part of "The Sky Moves Sideways." The last song is a bit of musical noodling that meanders in a vague, yet interesting way. The song is actually multiple parts that could have been defined separately, but were not. There are vocal portions by Suzanne Barbieri, there are whale noises near the end, there are lots of synthesizers and general instrumental fun that brought to my mind Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds," the soundtrack to "Zardoz," and Pink Floyd in general.

Under the category of those television commercials that exhort you to wait because there is more, this CD features a second disc that contains an early, alternate version of "The Sky Moves Sideways," when the concept was to create a single track for the release. This track has significant differences from the released version, including a portion that contains elements that recall "Timesteps," composed by Wendy (then Walter) Carlos for the movie "A Clockwork Orange." I am happy to see that someone else discovered the elements of this wonderfully bizarre work of art.

The next extra is the mellow, beautiful and still psychedelic "Stars Die." Once again the feel is surrealistic and fantastic, with splotches of imagery that may lead you to believe there is a basis in reality for this song, but the glimpses of reality are fleeting at best. I got the impression from this song that the group was making a statement about the intrusion of man into space destroying the dreams and visions that we had populated space with.

"Stars Die" folds into the sixteen plus minute "Moonloop (improvisation)." This instrumental is relatively free-form, as the title suggests, and reminds me of a much more polished style that King Crimson tried with "Moonchild" from "In the Court of the Crimson King." The music does meander and drift in and out of formality, but the tapestry the music weaves seems to strive for a purpose that makes this instrumental a joy for those who like this style. Near the end of this composition is a voice overlay from the first landing on the moon, at least, it sounds authentic.

This CD ends with "Moonloop (coda)," an energetic wrap up of the previous instrumental with a finish that reminds me a little of the finish to Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds," except the end of the song has a phone ring that is a throw back to an earlier track.

Where did progressive rock go? It is all around if we could but perceive. Porcupine Tree is one of the numerous groups that carry on the tradition. If you like Pink Floyd, Yes and the Moody Blues, I believe you will like this.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A remastered/reissue CD that improves on the original, May 7, 2005

By 

Garance A. Drosehn "ScatterbotsNY" (Troy, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sky Moves Sideways (Dig) (Audio CD)

Whenever records get some kind of special-processing or re-packaging, there is the question of whether it is just some trick to coax more money out of the loyal fans of the group, or whether there is some real added value to the new release. So, in reviewing the re-issue, some people will want to know "was this album *ever* worth listening to?", while others want to know "is *this* release of the album worth buying?"

In this case, the original album was excellent progressive-rock, and the re-issued version is definitely adding value over and above the original release. This re-issue is not just some minor polishing of the sound. For this re-issue, Steve went back into the studio, and reorganized and remixed many parts. And the result takes a great album, and makes it even better. The music is a little clearer (less muddy) on this version. This is particularly true for some of the drumming parts, which are high points of songs such as "The Sky Moves Sideways, Part 1", and "Moonloop".

This happens to be the first Porcupine Tree album I bought, and I bought it because the guy who ran my local record store knew I was a big fan of Pink Floyd. And you can definitely hear a heavy influence of Pink Floyd in this music. In fact, initially I thought they sounded too much like Pink Floyd. Particularly the early Floyd, with somewhat spaced-out lyrics. But now that they've released a few more albums and developed a much wider range of songs, I can go back to this album and really enjoy it. Especially this partially re-recorded and expanded edition of it.

The songs here tend to have a few somewhat obscure lyrics, and then lots of great instrumental passages. You can check out the lyrics at htttp://www.porcupinetree.com/ (look at the discography section, it includes all the lyrics). If you've only heard their two newer albums ("In Absentia" and "Deadwing"), then these songs have less of an edge than those two albums. They tend to be more of a floating feel to them, and the guitar parts are not as aggressive.

I would also say that enough has changed with this release, that a fan who wants to be a "true completist" of porcupine tree will also want to track down a copy of the original release.

Some of the songs on the second CD are alternate versions of the songs on the first CD, but they all sound great to me.

Note: The "Product Details" section on this page says that this album was originally released in 2003. That's the release date of *this* version of the album. The original, single-CD version of "Sky Moves Sideways" was released back in 1994, if I remember correctly.

It constantly amazes me that this group has been writing and playing music this good for so many years now, and yet so few people have heard songs from them! (or at least, not here in the USA).

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars not enough adjectives, November 9, 2004

By 

D. West "Viking of Chaos" (Pittsburgh, PA.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sky Moves Sideways (Dig) (Audio CD)

I am 48 yrs old and have been an active music listener for years. I took a chance on this cd,basically relying on the 30 second snippets from Amazon. These guys in a word are stupendous. I have heard others say they are similiar to Pink Floyd. I can see the comparison,but I think they take ambient,space-rock to another level. The music on "Sky moves Sideways" IMO is somber and beautiful,and then,harrowing and aggressive. Superb musicians (excellent lead guitar from Steven Wilson) In describing this band it is hard to begin and harder to stop with superlatives. I am utterly amazed. Peace.