Product Review

Gavin Harrison, drummer with British Prog innovators Porcupine Tree, currently working with King Crimson, and a musician whose playing and performing résumé includes stints with artists as varied as Iggy Pop, Lewis Taylor, Manfred Mann and Kevin Ayers, is to release a brand new solo album, entitled Cheating The Polygraph. Cheating The Polygraph is an ambitious project which sees the restlessly creative Harrison re-imagine eight songs from the acclaimed Porcupine Tree repertoire, in a set of vivid and vibrant new arrangements that give full, free rein to his enquiring musical mind. Harrison explains the approach thus: "I think every album needs a focus - a master plan - and whilst I thought about writing new tunes for a big band project - I made a version of PT's Futile (with Laurence Cottle) and it came out really well. It felt like a good plan to follow on with some of my personal favourite PT songs and see if we could make them work. I had a vision that the arrangements would never lean towards a clichéd classic big band sound but always follow a modern contemporary angle. So even if you didn't know the original tune you could still enjoy it as a modern composition that would work with this instrumentation. I couldn't be happier with the results. Laurence Cottle's immense talent as a musician and arranger was mind blowing."