Product Description

Party-liners may favour DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, but diehard space cadets recognise UMMAGUMMA as the pinnacle of post-Barrett Floyd's achievement. Originally released as a double LP, the first record is a live recording from 1969, while the second features four extended cuts written by (and featuring) each of the four bandmembers in turn. Eschewing the catchy, Kinks-influenced pop kaleidoscope of the band's first album, the live portion focuses on extended, spacy near-instrumentals, heavy on acid-fueled jamming and atmospheric electronic textures.
From the Eastern-tinged "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" to the over-the-top psychosis of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene", UMMAGUMMA's first half is ground zero for the genre that would come to be known as space rock. The solo efforts on the second half are undoubtedly theband's most experimental, unconventional efforts ever. Theymake good use of the avant-garde techniques that were a keyearly influence, like musique concrete-style tape collage and sound effects. Along the way, there's some lovely folk-tinged balladry, courtesy of Roger Waters ("Grantchester Meadows"), and some proto-prog keyboard wizardry (Richard Wright's multi-part "Sysyphus" (sic).

Track Listing

1. Astronomy Domine
2. Careful With That Axe Eugene
3. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
4. Saucerful Of Secrets
5. Sysyphus
6. Grantchester Meadows
7. Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together...
8. Narrow Way
9. Grand Vizier's Garden Party

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1287 in Music
• Released on: 1994-10-31
• Number of discs: 2

Customer Reviews

When music was inspired!
This is for me an album that takes me back to my youth and perhaps that is what makes it so special. One half of live music and the other of various bits that would reappear on a variety of bootlegs, namely 'The Man, The Journey' or 'The Massed Gadgets of Auximinies'. Around the same period 'More' features some of the other material and in many ways has a similar feel to this album. Yes it's weird and the studio material is far removed from the commercialism of 'Dark Side of the Moon'. This is what makes it so great. Creativity was at it's peak here. Be warned though! This is not like the more popular efforts so if you are planning on trying early Floyd out for the first time then this probably isn't a good starting place. This album is very much of its time and maybe it's that aspect that will be the most elusive.

Good, underrated transitional album
Floyd were clearly flailing around for a direction after Syd Barrett left, and the period 1968-71 is probably their most uneven. However, it did produce some good stuff, and I think Ummagumma is by and large pretty good.

The live album is superb, for starters. All the tracks here are, in my opinion, superior to their studio counterparts. They're basically longer and better versions, although this version of Saucerful of Secrets is the re-vamped version, with a stronger, more rock-orientated ending (ie Nick Mason comes in, whereas he doesn't on the studio version).

The studio album is a curate's egg, probably because the recordings are all solo efforts and would have almost certainly benefitted from the presence of the other band members. The studio half contains what is possibly their worst released effort, Sisyphus, by the late and much lamented Rick Wright. It's 13 minutes long, but would outstay its welcome at a third of that.

Grantchester Meadows - by Waters - is beautiful, but too long and hampered by the lack of David Gilmour on guitar solo duties. Waters sounds like he's playing with mittens on. Still, the Barrett-esque beauty of the track more or less sustains it. The second Waters track, Several Species... is actually quite funny. Yes, really. It works in a way that a later attempt at humour - Seamus from 1971's Meddle - doesn't.

David Gilmour's The Narrow Way spends its first half not doing much, before finding its feet. This actually sounds like the Pink Floyd of the 70s, and seems to me to be one of the earliest examples (along with Careful with that Axe, and maybe even its A-side, Point Me at the Sky) of the classic Floyd sound.

The only member of the band to emerge with his copy book unblotted on the studio album is Nick Mason. His Grand Vizer's Garden Party is unexpectedly successful - an interesting collage of drum and percussion stuff that sounds like the soundtrack to a Svankmajer film. Who'd have thought it would be drummer to the rescue?

Buy it on vinyl so you can stare endlessly at that great front cover. Not quite a case of all hail, over all, but maybe some qualified hailing here and there.

Definitive live versions plus studio experimentation
Recorded during the long period of readjustment following the departure of Syd Barrett, while the band searched for a new identity and direction, the album could have been just a contract fulfilling stop-gap just to put some product on the shelves. Instead we get a live album that presents an excellent showcase of what Pink Floyd were originally about, and gives a real sense of the psychedelic sixties together with a studio album, equally divided between the band members, four solo EPs in effect, exploring the way forward, searching for new ideas.

The live performances are critically acclaimed and widely held to be better than the studio originals. In the case of 'Careful With That Axe Eugene' the original had at the time only been available as a B side (since released on the Relics compilation) but this is the definitive version.

The studio album has not fared so well critically. Largely experimental, most of the pieces are in effect pieces in development. Sketches that if successful might later be incorporated into something more fully realised (as did in fact happen). 'Sysyphus' is a portentous, quasi-classical suite for keyboards and sound effects, 'The Narrow Way' a suite for guitars and weird electronic noises, and 'The Grand Vizier's Garden Party' a short suite for percussion and flute. Roger waters presents the albums only real 'songs'. The lilting acoustic pastoral folk of 'Grantchester Meadows' which brilliantly evokes the sounds of an English summer afternoon, and the weird sounds and nonsense Scottish ranting of 'Several Small Animals...' whose novelty value quickly wears thin. Despite this the album remains an essential listen for those wanting to look closer at early Pink Floyd's development, and remains surprisingly listenable - soothing yet interesting background music at worst.