Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia
This weekend Polly Samson casually dropped a bomb via Twitter when she announced that her husband David Gilmour’s band Pink Floyd would be releasing their first album in 20 years. Titled The Endless River, it will evidently be cobbled together from some unused tracks from two decades ago. Here’s the exact tweet:
Multi faceted musician Rick Wright died in September of 2008 from an undisclosed case of Cancer. The 1994 recordings the tweet refers to the last Pink Floyd album The Division Bell, which was poorly received despite going triple platinum. A photo of the albums recording session was later shared via Facebook by vocalist Durga McBrom-Hudson.
McBroom-Hudson goes on to say on her page “The recording did start during The Division Bell sessions (and yes, it was the side project originally titled “The Big Spliff” that Nick Mason spoke about). Which is why there are Richard Wright tracks on it. But David and Nick [Mason] have gone in and done a lot more since then, It was originally to be a completely instrumental recording, but I came in last December and sang on a few tracks. David then expanded on my backing vocals and has done a lead on at least one of them.”
The last remaining band member Roger Waters has announced that he will not be involved with the album. No tour is planned to coincide with its October release.
What exactly does this all mean? Well for starters it’s one final hurrah for one of the biggest rock bands of all time. It may also mean a huge setup for an equally huge disappointment considering the tracks are from the pretty terrible 1994 album. However, McBroom-Hudson’s involvement does suggest a bold new direction this time around, and if Wright and Mason have been working on this since Wright’s death it means years of polish will have gone into it. And really, there isn’t a better reason for the band to reunite one last time than to honor their fallen member and friend. Here’s hoping that all of this will lead up to an album worth of the man.