Signify

Signify is the fourth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. It was released in September 1996 and later re-released in 2003 with a second disc of demos, which had previously been released on the b-side cassette tape Insignificance, and a third time, on vinyl, on 9 May 2011. It was the first album that frontman Steven Wilson recorded with the band on board from the beginning; previous albums had been essentially solo efforts with occasional help from other musicians.

Background

Writing and recording

Signify was the first Porcupine Tree album recorded as a full band unit, rather than primarily by frontman Steven Wilson with occasional assistance from other musicians, primarily the ones who would become full-time band members as of this album; Richard Barbieri, Colin Edwin, and Chris Maitland. In 1995, the band would alternate between touring in support of their last release, The Sky Moves Sideways, and writing and recording the album, with Wilson describing it as "The album was recorded in quite a piecemeal way with tracks written and recorded in batches of 2 or 3, followed by gaps of up to 3 months." As such, a number of the songs, albeit in early forms, were debuted live before the album's release.