Writing and Recording
Steven Wilson started writing the album in early 2006, in Tel Aviv, while he was recording the second Blackfield album. In the meantime, Richard Barbieri wrote most of the music for the song "My Ashes". "Cheating The Polygraph" was a Harrison/Wilson composition whilst "Way Out Of Here", "What Happens Now?" and "Nil Recurring" was written by all four band members. The Blackfield album was finished in June so Wilson travelled back to London and met the other band members to work on the material he had been writing. These sessions took place between July and August and produced a good number of songs from which just six were picked for the record.
Porcupine Tree's first DVD, entitled Arriving Somewhere..., was released in August of the same year. The band started a short tour in September to promote it, during which the six new songs selected for the forthcoming album were performed at the first half of the shows. Along the tour, that lasted until November, the band began recording the album; eventually rejecting the song "Cheating the Polygraph", since they felt it was somewhat weak when compared to the other five of the live set list, and writing a totally new song called "Way Out of Here" to replace it. "Way Out of Here" was a collaboration between all band members and resulted in the only full-band composition of the record. They contacted King Crimson's guitarist Robert Fripp since he has toured with them many times before, so he provided some soundscapes to the song and lead guitar for the track "Nil Recurring", an instrumental song not included in the album but later released in the EP of the same name along with "Cheating the Polygraph".
Around the time of the recording, Wilson read an interview in Classic Rock magazine in which Rush's guitarist Alex Lifeson had mentioned he was a big fan of Porcupine Tree. Wilson quickly got in touch with Alex to ask him if he would like to play on the album. Lifeson was pleased to contribute so Wilson wrote a section of the song "Anesthetize" for him to play a solo on it. Alex recorded the solo in his own studio and sent it to Wilson.
The album recording process was finished in December of the same year. In January 2007 it was revealed that the album title would be Fear of a Blank Planet.
Read more about this topic: Fear Of A Blank Planet
Famous quotes containing the words writing and/or recording:
“The writing career is not a romantic one. The writer’s life may be colorful, but his work itself is rather drab.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)
“He shall not die, by G—, cried my uncle Toby.
MThe ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)