Recordings

Pink Floyd podcast series coming Nov. 25

Posted November 22, 2019 by Floydian Slip

BBC Radio 6 Music’s Matt Everitt will speak with David Gilmour during a four-part podcast series to promote “The Later Years” box-set coming in December.

“The Lost Art of Conversation” will premiere Monday, Nov. 25, on all podcast platforms. Remaining episodes will appear the three following Mondays.

Each episode will focus on a particular theme:

The studio
The band’s return to jamming in the recording studio and embracing new technology when faced with new advances in synthesizers and other instruments.

Artwork
Gilmour explains his ideas for the band’s artwork including how his sketch of a single, empty bed was transformed by Storm Thorgerson into the image of 500 beds for the cover of 1987’s “A Momentary Lapse of Reason.”

Live performances
How the band prepared for the prospect of an upcoming tour, and the enormous pressure facing them while rehearsing in a massive aircraft hangar in Toronto.

Unreleased new material from the box-set
Gilmour talks about the loads of new and rare material included in “The Later Years.” His memories are jogged by watching footage of the band flying over Miami Beach, watching swimmers surrounded by sharks.

The band is billing this podcast as Gilmour’s only interview surrounding the launch of the 16-disc box that focuses on post-Roger Waters era Floyd.

Read more about “The Later Years,” which is coming Dec. 13.

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Later Years box-set delayed

Posted October 30, 2019 by Floydian Slip

Pink Floyd The Later Years

Pink Floyd Records will release its “The Later Years” box-set on Dec. 13, two weeks later than its original release date of Nov. 29.

The physical product and its digital equivalent will both be delayed. The label cites “production and logistical delays” as the reason.

It still plans to release the 2-LP and 1-CD highlights packages on Nov. 29.

“One Slip” remix, Live 8 performance released

Posted October 25, 2019 by Floydian Slip

Pink Floyd has released another preview of its Nov. 29 box-set “The Later Years.”

Today the group made available on digital and streaming platforms a new mix of “One Slip” from 1987’s “A Momentary Lapse of Reason.”

The new version features original Floyd drummer Nick Mason replacing the track’s existing percussion work, which was performed by studio musician Jim Keltner. The new track also has additional keyboard work from the late Rick Wright.

“By returning to some of Richard Wright’s keyboard parts and recording new drum tracks with Nick Mason, producers David Gilmour and Bob Ezrin have restored the creative balance between the three Pink Floyd members,” the group says in a press release.

The new mix of “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” will appear for the first time in 5.1 Surround Sound, remixed by Gilmour and Andy Jackson, on “The Later Years.”

A few days ago the band posted videos of its reunion performance at 2005’s Live 8. Those clips can be found on Floyd’s YouTube channel, but, oddly, will not be part of the upcoming boxset.

Division Bell alternate take released

Posted September 27, 2019 by Floydian Slip

Legacy Recordings/Pink Floyd Records has released its second preview of this fall’s upcoming “The Later Years” boxset. An early version of “High Hopes” dropped today.

The previously unreleased recording is a pared-down version with little or no orchestration of the song that ends 1995’s “The Division Bell.”

The label’s first taste of the upcoming boxset was a recording of “Wish You Were Here” from 1990’s Knebworth concert released Aug. 30. Floyd’s contribution to the original release of that show — Knebworth: The Album (1990) — was limited to two songs, “Run Like Hell” and “Comfortably Numb,” both originally from The Wall (1979). “The Later Years will include the band’s enter 7-song set from that day.

“The Later Years” will be released Nov. 29. Read more about the boxset (“The Later Years” boxset coming Nov. 29”).

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“The Later Years” boxset coming Nov. 29

Posted August 29, 2019 by Floydian Slip

On Nov. 29, Pink Floyd Records will release a massive 16-disc boxset of material representing the band’s output beginning in 1987.

“Pink Floyd The Later Years” will include more than six hours of previously-unheard audio and more than seven hours of previously-unseen audiovisuals collected on five CDs, six Blu-Ray discs and five DVDs.

Highlights include full previously-unreleased audio and remastered films from 1989’s Venice concert and 1990’s Knebworth show; the first-ever release of the band’s last live performance at the 2007 Syd Barrett Tribute Concert including David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright; a remixed version of “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” updated by Gilmour and Andy Jackson; and a variety of replica memorabilia.

The box would appear to be a companion to the band’s “The Early Years” collection that covers the years 1965-1972 and was released in 2016.

This 16-page press release (PDF) explains the full contents of “Pink Floyd The Later Years” in excruciating detail.

You can pre-order the set from the official Pink Floyd store for $455.

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Glasgow man makes music from Syd Barrett’s garden detritus

Posted March 11, 2019 by Floydian Slip

Drew Mulholland, a lecturer and composer-in-residence at Glasgow University, has turned a handful of debris collected from the garden of Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett into a 8-minute audio recording.

Mulholland, who boasts of being labelled a “groovy academic” and “weirdy,” started producing avant-garde recordings as a teenager in the 1970s. In the ’90s, the Ghost Box label released an album of this work titled “The Séance at Hobs Lane” under his moniker the Mount Vernon Arts Lab.

His Barrett-inspired piece, “Mandy Rakes Up the Leaves Again,” was created with a collection of leaves, moss and twigs Mullholland found alongside the garden of Barrett’s former home in Cambridge. After arranging and gluing it to a 7-inch cardboard disc (pictured) and playing it through a record-player, he cut up the output and reassembled it into a collage of ghostly pops and snaps lasted just under eight minutes.

Barrett left Pink Floyd shortly after the band’s star began to rise in the ’60s, and famously retreated to his family home in Cambridge where we lived out the rest of his life.

Listen to “Mandy Rakes Up the Leaves Again” at Bandcamp

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“Saucerful” reissue coming for Record Store Day

Posted March 4, 2019 by Floydian Slip

Pink Floyd Records will reissue the band’s 1968 album “A Saucerful of Secrets” in its original mono mix for Record Store Day April 13.

James Guthrie, Joel Plante and Bernie Grundman worked from the original 1968 mono mix for this reissue. Pressed onto 180-gram vinyl, it’ll come with a faithful reproduction of the LP’s original artwork, including the Columbia logo. (Early Floyd albums were released in the U.K. sporting the Columbia logo, via EMI.)

The “Saucerful” reissue will be limited to 6,500 albums.

Last year, the band offered a reissue of “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” (1969) for Record Store Day.

Record Store Day was conceived in 2007 as a way to celebrate and support independently-owned record stores.

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Alan Parsons to release new album

Posted February 9, 2019 by Floydian Slip

Alan Parsons will release his first studio album in 14 years this spring.

“The Secret,” comprised of 11 new tracks, will arrive April 26 on the Frontiers Music label.

Parsons engineered Pink Floyd‘s “The Dark Side of the Moon” (1973). His last album, 2004’s “A Valid Path,” featured David Gilmour.

The first single from “The Secret” will drop later this month, with pre-order details to follow.

Here’s the songlist:

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Miracle
As Lights Fall
One Note Symphony
Sometimes
Soirée Fantastique
Fly To Me
Requiem
Years Of Glory
The Limelight Fades Away
I Can’t Get There From Here

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Roger Waters to release “The Soldier’s Tale”

Posted September 12, 2018 by Floydian Slip

Sony Classical will release Igor Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” recorded by Roger Waters next month.

“The Soldier’s Tale” is a musical theatre piece conceived in 1918 by Stravinsky and Swiss writer C. F. Ramuz, and based on the Russian folk tale “The Runaway Soldier and the Devil” from the collection of Alexander Afanasyev.

In the original story, a soldier trades his fiddle to the devil in return for unlimited wealth. Waters has rewritten the text of the original piece for his adaptation.

In his recording, Waters plays all of the roles — the principal parts of the Soldier, the Devil and the Narrator, as well as all supporting characters. As originally conceived, the piece uses three actors for the principal roles, along with one or more dancers.

Other recent adaptations of “The Soldier’s Tale” include an animated version featuring Max von Sydow and broadcast on PBS in 1984; a 1993 version by Kurt Vonnegut that set the story in WWII; and a jazz version by Joan Sanmartí in 2002.

Waters’s “The Soldier’s Tale” is set for release Oct. 26.

Posted in Merchandise, Personnel, Recordings, Roger Waters | 1 comment