Pink Floyd To Release First New Album in 20 Years
UPDATE: On Monday, Columbia Records confirmed the album’s October release date and noted that “it is an album of mainly ambient and instrumental music based on the 1993/4 Division Bell sessions which feature David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright.” The release added that the album will be produced by Gilmour alongside Phil Manzanera, Youth and recording engineer Andy Jackson.”
Pink Floyd is about to return with their first album in 20 years. Polly Samson, the wife of singer-guitarist David Gilmour, surprised fans on Saturday when she casually announced over Twitter that the band has a new record in the works and it’s coming out this fall. A representative for Gilmour confirmed the release of the album to Rolling Stone.
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“Btw Pink Floyd album out in October is called ‘The Endless River,'” Samson wrote. “Based on 1994 sessions is Rick Wright’s swansong and very beautiful.” (Keyboardist and founding member Wright died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 65.)
The band had just celebrated the 20th anniversary of 1994’s The Division Bell with an extravagant reissue of the album on July 1st. The new material appears to be connected to unreleased recordings made during the Division Bell sessions.
Durga McBroom-Hudson, a singer who toured with Pink Floyd in the 1980s and 1990s and is apparently involved in the new project, offered more details on The Endless River through her Facebook 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),” she explained. “Which is why there are Richard Wright tracks on it. But David and Nick 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. That’s the song you see being worked on in the photo.” She went on to emphasize that the new album will consist entirely of unreleased songs.