WATCHING THE RIVER FLOW
Classic Rock|June 2024
Most thought 1994's The Division Bell was Pink Floyd's final statement. But after sifting through surplus material, 20 years later, with a little help from his friends, David Gilmour pulled The Endless River out of the hat.
Daryl Easlea
WATCHING THE RIVER FLOW

“It comes from all sorts of ideas,” David Gilmour said in 2014, of Pink Floyd’s then-new album The Endless River. “Some of it is improvised, quite a bit of it is just the two of us, Rick [Wright] and me, or the three of us, improvising together. Some of it is half-written ideas that one of us had come up with, rehearsed and considered as a start point for something.”

Those ideas often came about on the Astoria, Gilmour’s houseboat moored on the River Thames in West London. It was also there, in 2012, that engineer Andy Jackson, who had worked with Floyd and Gilmour since 1980, learned there was to be a new Pink Floyd album, some 20 years after they had last released fresh material, and after years of Gilmour saying “absolutely, definitely not”.

It was no secret that there was a surplus of material from the sessions that produced 1994’s The Division Bell. Due to the amount, at one point it had been envisaged as a double, with one disc of tracks with vocals and the other built from the instrumental sessions that began at Floyd’s Britannia Row studios and continued on the Astoria in early 1993. All featured Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason and keyboard player Rick Wright. The purpose of these sessions was to create ideas for songs.

“After two weeks we had taped an extraordinary collection of riffs, patterns and musical doodles,” Nick Mason wrote in his book Inside Out: A Personal History Of Pink Floyd. “Some rather similar, some nearly identifiable as old songs of ours, some clearly subliminal reinventions of well-known songs.”

From these, around 40 workable ideas emerged. As The Division Bell took shape, it became clear that there would be no time to fashion these instrumentals into an album. As a result, the recordings languished.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der June 2024-Ausgabe von Classic Rock.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der June 2024-Ausgabe von Classic Rock.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

WEITERE ARTIKEL AUS CLASSIC ROCKAlle anzeigen
Joan Armatrading
Classic Rock

Joan Armatrading

The singer-songwriter on her new album, inspirations, being a 'band', what her key was about, meeting Nelson Mandela...

time-read
4 Minuten  |
December 2024
Meat Loaf: I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
Classic Rock

Meat Loaf: I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)

It was the power ballad to end all power ballads, and 30 years later people still ponder what the it’ is that the singer wouldn't do.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
December 2024
Kris Kristofferson: June 22, 1936 - September 28, 2024
Classic Rock

Kris Kristofferson: June 22, 1936 - September 28, 2024

Kris Kristofferson, the iconic, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and actor who played a key role in advancing a strand of country music into a more raw and confessional direction now recognised as outlaw country, has died peacefully at his home in Maui, surrounded by family. He was 88 years old.

time-read
3 Minuten  |
December 2024
"I have come a very long way in the last two-and-a-bit years"
Classic Rock

"I have come a very long way in the last two-and-a-bit years"

Back from the brink: the Thunder vocalist who survived major medical trauma returns.

time-read
4 Minuten  |
December 2024
EVER MEET LEMMY?
Classic Rock

EVER MEET LEMMY?

He's heard Lemmy's unreleased solo album, had dinner with Chris Holmes, told Paul McCartney to get a round in, been told gangster Reggie Kray wanted to have a word with him... He is Dogs D'Amour frontman Tyla 7 Pallas, and these are some of his stories.

time-read
7 Minuten  |
December 2024
"LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT HAVING FUN"
Classic Rock

"LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT HAVING FUN"

With their ninth studio album In Murmuration, Finnish rockers Von Hertzen Brothers have replaced their erstwhile prog epics for a more honest approach to songwriting reflecting their personal lives.

time-read
10 Minuten  |
December 2024
IN THE BEGINNING
Classic Rock

IN THE BEGINNING

With previously unseen photographs from their early days as featured in the new Queen | Collector's Edition, Sir Brian May talks us through sights of the band in the early seventies.

time-read
8 Minuten  |
December 2024
BASS-IC INSTINCT
Classic Rock

BASS-IC INSTINCT

Plucked from obscurity in 1975 to be in David Bowie's band, then unceremoniously out of the picture five years later, bassist George Murray looks back on his time with the Thin White Duke.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
December 2024
High Rollers
Classic Rock

High Rollers

When Ronnie Wood, the Stones and some A-list mates holed up at his house to help with his solo album, it sparked a days-long party, a Rolling Stones hit and the last album by arguably their finest line-up.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
December 2024
THE NAME OF THE GAM
Classic Rock

THE NAME OF THE GAM

When ABBA-mad Opeth leader Mikael Akerfeldt met one of their singers, he lost it”. She didn’t sing on their new concept album, but some other, perhaps unlikely, big names did.

time-read
8 Minuten  |
December 2024