AN ESCALATOR TO CHRISTMAS

This is a short 12" single put out to promote another one of Steven Wilson's projects. The overall feeling of this is a lot like the space rock side of Porcupine Tree. There are two songs on this single/E.P. The first side is a multi-track suite called "An Escalator to Christmas" which overall lasts 10 minutes and goes by rather quickly. The suite is divided up into 10 short tracks, but only 3 of them actually have music on them while the other tracks have sound and voice snippets that tie it all together. I am not sure what the concept behind this is, but the sound and voice bits are somewhat humorous, yet tragic sounding also, almost what you would expect from Steven Wilson. The 3 parts of the suite that are actually musical are definitely short studies in spacey instrumentals. "Sign Language" is more upbeat with a strong bass line and a strong percussion throughout with spacey keyboards and an occasional strong guitar solo being the main focus. "An Escalator to Xmas" is a very minimal bongo-like sound with a psychedelic organ and sustained guitar notes floating around. "In Place of a Requiem" is more spacey and seems to be all keyboards playing sustained notes that fade in and out. These three musical sections are very short, not lasting more than 3 1/2 minutes each, so just as you are feeling it, the suite passes on to another track.

"Headphone Dust" is the b-side and is a +6 minute instrumental that finally lasts long enough for you to be taken away into the music. It is very mellow and spacey and again takes on the sound that you can hear on the early Porcupine Tree albums. If you liked PT's albums like "Sky Moves Sideways" then this might interest you, but this isn't long enough to really have much of an effect. As for "Headphone Dust", you can actually find that track on the CD version of the I.E.M. self titled album, so this particular release is only of interest for collectors, which would be happy to have this rare find as part of their collection. Otherwise, there really isn't a lot of value to this single.