1/22/2024 0 Comments Echoes of pompeii review![]() Once a moneymaking scheme for unscrupulous non-music-fans, the ancient recordings are now passed around like joints, with strict orders not to make a profit, dusted and remastered by the Floyd “fan community” (which does contain – surprise! – its share of audiophile geeks). But to experience the full weight of mid-period Floyd – and to dismantle preconceptions of the band as stuck-up, showboating dinosaurs (or at least, replace these with other objections) – you have to seek out those superior live shows, now available free of charge via the internet. The live disc of Ummagumma hints at this, as does Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii, the atmospheric (and in the case of the in-studio interviews which punctuate the tracks, unwittingly hilarious) film from 1971, in which the Floyd freak out inside a ruined amphitheatre, and roam the foothills of Vesuvius with beards and satchels, like hippie hitchhikers wandered off course. ![]() Pink Floyd in concert were almost unrecognisable from Pink Floyd on record: massive, crude and hypnotic, all power and effect. The consensus is clear – this was Pink Floyd’s fallow period.īut as it turns out, on stage between ’68 and ’72 – right up to Dark Side, when the spontaneity was sucked from their act – they were something else. Only on Meddle do the Floyd come into focus: ‘Echoes’ is everything British prog should have been, gliding through uncanny atmospheres and gigantic grooves, unearthy lulls and crescendos. More is a pleasantly dreamy movie soundtrack, but really just mood music the studio disc of Ummagumma, hailed at the time as a masterpiece, now seems a laughable indulgence, and sounds like it was performed in boxing gloves.1970’s Atom Heart Mother is art-rock at its gawky, parping worst. A Saucerful Of Secrets is Carnaby Street psych, charged with some genuine experimentalism but still, for the most part, a Barrett hangover. Listening to the albums, you may well conclude that there was a dead zone, stretching from Syd’s enforced removal up to ‘Echoes’ in 1971. Cited by the obsessive or the contrarian, more commonly it’s left to rot, in the twin shadows of Dark Side and their work with Barrett – it didn’t outsell Jesus, and it isn’t The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. But somehow, the period between 19 (when Dark Side Of The Moon changed everything) seems almost to have vanished from view. That seems fair enough, even if – like me – you have a soft spot for glue-thick gunge like Animals, or are happy to drift in the scented spaces of Wish You Were Here. ![]() Then, later, it was all The Wall and those puddingy stadium extravaganzas, a parody of profundity and a crashing bore. That at first they were fierce: Syd Barrett’s trembling talent, a lifetime of wonder crushed into eighteen overlit months. Taylor Parkes goes behind The Wall to find Pink Floyd’s post-Syd Barrett greatness in a series of live albums that showcase them at their inventive, truly progressive bestīearing in mind that “we” never quite means “you and me” – what do we know about Pink Floyd? Careful With That Axe: Pink Floyd Reappraised (2009)
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