Porcupine Tree were an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. The band began essentially as a solo project for Wilson, who created all of the band's music. By late 1993, however, he wanted to work in a band environment, bringing on frequent collaborators Richard Barbieri as keyboardist, Colin Edwin as bassist, and Chris Maitland as drummer to form the first permanent lineup. With Wilson as lead vocalist and guitarist, this remained the lineup until February 2002, when Maitland left the band and Gavin Harrison was recruited to replace him.
On the Sunday of Life...
Along with the A Psychedelic Psauna compilation, which featured the Porcupine Tree track "Linton Samuel Dawson", the newly formed Delerium label, formed by Freakbeat editors Richard Allen and Ivor Trueman, offered to reissue the cassettes Tarquin's Seaweed Farm and The Nostalgia Factory. Two hundred copies of each cassette were sold through Freakbeat's mail order, The Freak Emporium, and soon Porcupine Tree became known as a mysterious new act amongst the then UK underground psychedelic music scene.  Shortly thereafter, Delerium invited Wilson to sign with as one of the label's founder artists. The first release after this, a double vinyl album and single CD compiling the best material from his two cassettes, was released in mid-1992 as On the Sunday of Life, a title chosen from a long list of possible nonsense titles compiled by Richard Allen. The rest of the music from the initial tapes was released on the limited edition compilation album Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape.  In 1992, Delerium released On the Sunday of Life as an edition of 1,000 copies, complete with a deluxe gatefold sleeve. The album sold very well, particularly in Italy, and it was briefly repressed on vinyl and has remained in print on CD ever since its release. The album featured future concert favourite and frequent encore song "Radioactive Toy". By 2000, On the Sunday of Life... had accumulated sales of more than 20,000 copies. On the Sunday of Life was originally meant to be a quadruple (LP)/double (CD) album compiling both cassettes in full, but changed to the best (according to Wilson) songs from the tapes. In 2004, Wilson remixed and remastered all three tapes, releasing them as a three-CD box set called Footprints: Cassette Music 1988-1992. This box was only distributed to family and friends.
What is On the Sunday of Life?
In 1992, Delerium released On the Sunday of Life as an edition of 1,000 copies, complete with a deluxe gatefold sleeve.
In 1992, Delerium released On the Sunday of Life as an edition of 1,000 copies, complete with a deluxe gatefold sleeve.