Review of The Endless River

A musical dialogue with the hereafter. A tribute to Rick Wright. A collage frayed. Fifty minutes of immersion in a timeless sound. A long introduction to the song that closes the adventure of Pink Floyd. A tombstone light. "The endless river" is the album that no one had expected, not to the tweet of Polly Samson last July. Instead of leaving with a final statement bombastic, with a disc full of meaning and a colossal tour, Pink Floyd take their leave with a tribute to the art of the keyboard player who died in 2008, but also to its talented architects sound. Substantially instrumental album, "The endless river" refers to the freedom that the band had in previous years "The dark side of the moon." The freedom to get away from the song form, the freedom to make mistakes. With one key difference: those were Pink Floyd bold and progressive, these are satisfied and conservatives.

"The endless river" is first and foremost an appendix to "The division bell". For the few who do not know the story, during the sessions of the album of 1994, the group then composed of David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Masoncarezzò the idea of publishing a double: on one hand the songs, the other instrumentals , a kind of "Ummagumma". The project was abandoned and for almost twenty years and jam music sketched remained in the archives of Gilmour. There is also finished "The big spliff", collage assembled by Andy Jackson from those fragments to demonstrate its potential. But "The endless river" is not "The big spliff". The twenty hours of archival recordings were entrusted to the co-producer Phil Manzanera, youthe same Jackson in order to obtain and install the best moments. Devoid of design talent of a Roger Waterse perhaps distracted by the recording of his solo album, Gilmour has entrusted to them the task of laying the foundations of the album. When she regained possession of the project tracks assembled by the producers were partly echoed and reworked, supplemented by new performance, shuffled and rearranged to compose the four sections of the album. The session was attended by Jon Carin and Damon Iddins on keyboards, Guy Pratt on bass and Bob Ezrin, saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, three singers and the female quartet of electric arcs Escala, launched at home from participation in "Britain's got talent".

It's hard ambient Pink Floyd, has been said. But "The endless river" denies one of the principles of ambient music that is designed to serve as a background to daily activities. Music as a piece of furniture, a painting, upholstery. "The endless river" does not work that way. Demands your attention to be appreciated because it communicates through small changes, the alternation of tone colors, the idea of instrumental music as abstract narration. To understand this you have to immerse us. Frustrates the listener from YouTube, he wants a refrain within thirty seconds and it's sensational. The album offers a partial view of Pink Floyd, showing mostly their talent in launching into digressions instrumental mood. It provides good evidence of Gilmour, his tone, his touch. In this sense, the disc is perfectly within the tradition of the band. Too, and this is its main limitation. References to works ranging from "The Dark Side of the Moon" and "The Wall", and of course "The division bell", make it seem the album echoes of the past. It is absent any recklessness. Fortunately, even the sounds are absent dating dating back to the 1993 session and traceable in "The division bell". Curiously, it appears a fragment from Wright played the organ of the Royal Albert Hall in 1969: not clash at all.

What we hear is not the creative dialogue between the musicians of the group. Resembles rather the collective vision - Gilmour, Mason, Manzanera, Youth and Jackson - the essence of Pink Floyd. It is a collage of many hands constructed from existing material and following an idea of what Pink Floyd are or should be. Gilmour and Mason did not alter the character of impromptu recordings, have safeguarded their precarious denying opportunity. They could transform some instrumental songs and meet an even wider audience. They preferred to remain faithful to the original idea by producing one of those albums "minor" that appear in the discography of Pink Floyd pre "Dark side". The problem is that being tied to a "script" - the assembly of old engravings - Gilmour and Mason have not fully solved the problem of the fragmentary nature of the material. If "It's what we do", "anisina" and "Allons-y" offer a musical narrative accomplished, many more songs than a few minutes in duration seem queues or preludes of songs that never arrive, and especially at the beginning of the third section group seed remnants music easily amendable. Once every note of Pink Floyd seemed sculpted, designed, required. S'ascoltavano their instrumental in suspense, to see where they were going to end up. Today their music is beautifully predictable.
The album may sound to the ears of the most impatient as a long introduction - somewhere between trance, dream and nightmare - the piece that closes sang, "Louder than words" (the deluxe version includes three other instrumental and six video tracks). Twenty years ago, "The division bell" would close with the intense bittersweet nostalgia for "High hopes" for an era in which "the grass was greener and more turned on the light." Today "The endless river", which takes its title from a line in the same song, closes the story of Pink Floyd with a feeling of peace and a look that embraces seemingly the entire history of the group. When David Gilmour sings "What we do is louder than words" - him in low tones and singers octave above, on the model of Leonard Cohen - the memory goes to the parable of Syd Barrett, the merciless battle with Roger Waters, exclusion of Richard Wright. To borrow the words of Polly Samson, the group launches with "Louder than words" the first compassionate gaze on himself, on his miseries, on their talents. Pink Floyd have no more to say. Now they can dissolve in history.