Gavin Harrison - Cheating The Polygraph

Cheating The Polygraph is a studio album by English drummer and percussionist Gavin Harrison, released in April 2015 via Kscope Records.

Gavin Harrison is best known for playing with the British progressive rock bands Porcupine Tree and King Crimson. His influences come from his father's jazz collection and from drummers such as Steve Gadd and Jeff Porcaro.

He won the Modern Drummer magazine readers' poll for "best progressive drummer of the year" consecutively from 2007–2010 and again in 2016. He won "Best Prog Drummer" in DRUM USA magazine 2011. He is the featured cover story on Modern Drummer January 2009. Rolling Stone Magazine polls rate him as the third best drummer in the past 25 years. Best Prog Drummer 2011 & 2012 in Prog Magazine. In 2014, Modern Drummer magazine placed Gavin in the Top 50 Greatest Drummers of all Time.

The raw material for Cheating The Polygraph is from the repertoire of Porcupine Tree, brilliantly arranged by Laurence Cottle who also plays bass guitar with characteristic aplomb throughout. The arrangements are so dense that it's unsurprising the album took 5 years to be conceived and recorded in between the busy live schedules of all concerned.

There are few solos (and none of them from Harrison or Cottle, which is a shame since they're both brilliant soloists) and those that there are don't last long. The album’s emphasis being on the arrangements and their performance. The precision with which they're played also has something to do with how they were recorded - multi-tracked by some of the UK's finest talents including Mark Nightingale (trombone), Nigel Hitchcock (saxes) and Ryan Quigley and Tom Walsh (trumpets). As a consequence, the ensemble performances are strikingly perfect.

In terms of instrumentation there are a number of surprises, such as only occassional keyboard, no guitar, lots of flute (from Larry Williams, Gareth Lockrane and Andy Findon) and woodwinds, baritone and tenor horn courtesy of Andy Wood, tuba, euphonium, something called a tubax wielded briefly by Pete Long, assorted orchestral percussion and marimba added by Gavin Harrison himself. The arrangements are so texturally, harmonically and rhythmically varied throughout that the endings of tracks usually come as a surprise.

Ultimately this album is a showcase for the ensemble-playing talents of all concerned, Gavin Harrison's creativity, power and precision on the drums, and Laurence Cottle's extraordinary skills both as arranger and bassist.

Check out the album tracks: “Mother & Child Divided” and “Hatesong / Halo”.

This LP record is on 180 gram heavyweight vinyl housed in a gatefold sleeve, pressed in Europe.