The song shifts from dramatic piano-smashing to eventual eerie ambience, concluding with samples of what could only be assumed to be airplane engines coupled with a church.Īnd then Pink Floyd, almost ironically, follows “Sisyphus” up with the tranquil, folksy “Grantchester Meadows,” one of the tracks (along with the infamously detested “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict”) more traceable to Just Another Diamond Day.īunyan’s “Come Wind Come Rain” and “Swallow Song” both exhibit (well, almost, anyway) the sort of unkempt energy and unconventional songwriting Ummagumma so exemplifies. Ummagumma kicks off with the four-part, nearly 14-minute-long “Sisyphus,” almost a continuation of the dramatic, grandiose preceding live album. The two albums may sound markedly different-with the former’s being more unkempt chaos and the latter’s being reserved, almost childlike wonder and emotion-but the almost anti-folk techniques showcased in both suggest at least a little bit of influence on Bunyan’s from Pink Floyd. both acts recording the albums in London at around the same time, and Bunyan recording hers with the help of a Pink Floyd–affiliated producer. Though the comparison between Pink Floyd and Vashti Bunyan is most likely a stretched one, there is at least a little weight held by the claim, given some key logistics, e.g. artist Vashti Bunyan.īunyan released her landmark Just Another Diamond Day folk LP in December 1970, just about one year after Ummagumma. “Careful with That Axe, Eugene” and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”) and the second an about-46-minute-long collection of experimental, borderline freak (essentially psychedelic) folk music.īut, at the risk of being crucified by music critics and fans alike, I believe Ummagumma to be, if not Pink Floyd’s defining work, one of the most retrospectively influential albums of all time.Īt least to the freak folk community-which has historically included such artists as Sufjan Stevens, Animal Collective and the immensely forward-thinking U.K. Under the campaign, multiple forms of the bands material were released, with new remasters and unreleased tracks.
Released in October 1969, Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma is a double LP (meaning two records included, instead of one) with the first being an assortment of live Pink Floyd songs (essentially the classics up until that point, e.g. was a re-release campaign of Pink Floyds back catalogue, released in three stages over 201112. Sure, it’s an amazing few tracks, but that’s not what earns the double album Ummagumma its reputation as one of the worst albums of all time. But there’s no faulting the quality of the material that the record actually contains.Forget the live album. Whether the same could be said for A Collection Of Great Dance Songs we can’t readily say, given a dog-eared copy still lurks in this writer’s record collection. So whilst there will undoubtedly be plenty of Floyd fans who remain sniffy at the band’s very existence after 1983 (this writer will admit to thinking The Divison Bell is better than … Momentary… however), and possibly even more so about their recorded output, we’d be more than happy to shell out money for this new vinyl version of the live album. But this writer was always more of a Gilmour man than Waters. So, like the rest of their output, 1988’s Delicate Sound Of Thunder (the first Floyd live album, recorded during a five night run at Nassau Coliseum) sounds good to these ears. This writer, too young to catch the band with Waters, saw them for the first time on the A Momentary Lapse Of Reason tour at Wembley Stadium and was suitably blown away. Your view of post-Waters Floyd probably depends on your age.