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Porcupine Tree - Warszawa CD (album) cover

WARSZAWA

Porcupine Tree

 

Heavy Prog

3.95 | 345 ratings

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Easy Livin
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
4 stars Best with added brass

Recorded in Poland in 2001 and released 3 years later in 2004, "Warszawa" captures what was essentially a live in the studio performance in front of a small audience. At the time, the band's latest studio album was "Lightbulb sun", and the set list naturally concentrates on tracks from that release.

We start though with a superb rendition of "Even less" from "Stupid dream". The sound quality is very good as you would expect in a quasi-studio environment, although the odd piece of feedback drifts in as the early gremlins are still being sorted out. The entire performance is captured here with the exception of one song (see later). That omission was simply in order to keep the product down to a single disc; thus we have a running time of over 79 minutes. The tracks are however mixed up a bit, with the final song of the set, "Lightbulb sun", appearing here as track 5, ostensibly to improve the flow of the album.

Highlights include a slightly shortened but still 12+ minutes rendition of "Russia on ice" (from "Lightbulb sun") and a beautifully sensitive run through of "Stop Swimming" (from "Stupid dream"). The latter part of the set as it is presented here is given over to a couple of older numbers, namely an extract of "Voyage 34" and "Signify". It seems from Steve Wilson's dialogue that these two tracks were performed after the live radio broadcast had ended.

The track which was included in the performance but omitted from the CD is "Tinto brass", a song which was originally on "Stupid dream". Fortunately, this lost track can be download free of charge from Porcupine Tree's retail site BurningShed.com . If you wish to place it in the correct sequence in the set, it goes after right after "Stop swimming".

In all, a fine album which captures Porcupine Tree's prowess in the live environment.

Easy Livin | 4/5 |

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