The Endless River, the new Pink Floyd album from David Gilmour, Rick Wright and Nick Mason

 

Produced by David Gilmour, Phil Manzanera, Youth and Andy Jackson

 

 

200-gram vinyl in gatefold jacket mastered by Doug Sax at The Mastering Lab

 

Pink Floyd's new album The Endless River has as its starting point the music that came from the 1993 Division Bell sessions, when David Gilmour, Rick Wright and Nick Mason played freely together at Britannia Row and Astoria studios. This was the first time they had done so since the Wish You Were Here sessions in the seventies. Those sessions resulted in The Division Bell, the band's last studio album.

 

In 2013 David Gilmour and Nick Mason revisited the music from those sessions and decided that the tracks should be made available as part of the Pink Floyd repertoire. It would be the last time the three of them would be heard together. The band have spent the last year recording and upgrading the music, using the advantages of modern studio technology to create The Endless River.

 

The Endless River is a tribute to Rick Wright, whose keyboards are at the heart of the Pink Floyd sound. It is a mainly instrumental album with one song, "Louder Than Words," (with new lyrics by Polly Samson), arranged across four sides and produced by David Gilmour, Phil Manzanera, Youth and Andy Jackson.

 

The concept for the powerful imagery of a man rowing on a "river" of clouds was created by Ahmed Emad Eldin, an 18-year-old Egyptian digital artist. Ahmed's image was then re-created by Stylorouge, award-winning UK design agency. Pink Floyd's album artwork, mostly created by Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis, is as legendary as the band's music. With Storm's passing in 2013, the task of finding an image that carried on Storm's legacy passed to Aubrey 'Po' Powell, Storm's original partner in Hipgnosis.

 

David Gilmour: "The Endless River has as its starting point the music that came from the 1993 Division Bell sessions. We listened to over 20 hours of the three of us playing together and selected the music we wanted to work on for the new album. Over the last year we've added new parts, re-recorded others and generally harnessed studio technology to make a 21st century Pink Floyd album. With Rick gone, and with him the chance of ever doing it again, it feels right that these revisited and reworked tracks should be made available as part of our repertoire."

 

Nick Mason: "The Endless River is a tribute to Rick. I think this record is a good way of recognizing a lot of what he does and how his playing was at the heart of the Pink Floyd sound. Listening back to the sessions, it really brought home to me what a special player he was."

 

Pink Floyd The Endless River 

 

LP1

Things Left Unsaid

It's What We Do

Ebb and Flow

Sum

Skins

Unsung

Anisina

 

LP2

The Lost Art of Conversation

On Noodle Street

Night Light

Allons-y (1)

Autumn'68

Allons-y (2)

Talkin' Hawkin'

Calling

Eyes to Pearls

Surfacing