UMMAGUMMA

Ummagumma is quite weird, even for Pink Floyd. The first disc is a live album, containing fantastic renderations of fantastic tracks, the other is a studio album, consisting of four pieces. Each piece is composed and performed by a single member.

On the live album, the performance isn't the best, but still very good. The production is probably the among best you could have in the sixties, so you can hear the layers and stuff. Instellar Overdrive and Embryo were also recorded, but not included to keep the sound good on LP. I would have liked to see them, especially the latter, on the CD reissue when there is enough space. Good album though, 4+ stars.

The first half side of the studio album contais Rick Wright's avant-garde piece Sysyphus. It starts out pretty well and ends good too, but in the middle it get's a bit too weird, and as texture quite boring as there's only piano. There is however an interesting ambience and atmosphere here.

Next half side written by Roger Waters, and as you might excpect it's a bit more conventional. Grantchester Meadows is one of the most beautiful PF songs ever. Psychadelic folk performed on only three acoustic guitars, vocals and various animal and nature sounds. Very calm and idyllic. The other Waters piece is the ridiculously titled Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict, and it sounds just like that too. No instruments here, just vocals and effects. Creepy but cool song, or perhaps more so called concrete poetry.

Gilmour's side is by far the most accomplished here. One track, called The Narrow Way, consisting of three movements. The first one is just layered acoustic guitar with weird sound effects, the next one electric guitar and percussion and the third more of the future style PF. Very good song by David.

The last one, Nick Mason's effort, is prett much just a drum solo with a flute intro and outro. It's good at times but not very coherent and "studio material".

This is an good album, not very solid but fantastic songs are present here. It also shows that PF work much better as a group than as solo artists. It's still worth to get only for disc 1, and disc 2 isn't bad either.

Rating breakdown: (4 + (2,5 + 4 + 5 + 2)) / 5 = 3, 5 ≈ 3 stars. However I think it's essential if you're a PF fan, but there are albums that you should buy before this.