UMMAGUMMA

Pink Floyd discography here in Brazil was a problem. "Atom Heart Mother" and "Meddle" were shyly realeased in 1972 and in the following year I guess due to tremendous impact of "Dark Side of the Moon" several 'oldies' were made available: "The Piper...", ASoS, "Obscured By Clouds", "More", "Relics" and "Ummagumma" - all of them alongside with the blockbuster DSotM. Can someone imagine the confusion when the work of 6 years is released almost simultaneously?

"Ummagumma" itself posed other problems: it was double and also it costed double the price! Even so I bought it - my first purchase of a double album, what an effort it was. The album obliged me to another effort: to know more about the band biography and discography and it took me several days to put things in order - remember that Google and Wikipedia weren't available then!!!

With chronology ordered I could enjoy "Ummagumma" more accurately and the result was fair. The double work contains everything that composed the early prog: psychedelism, space, experimentalism - all spiced by rock, blues, jazz and madness (Barrett's echoes perhaps).

It is obvious that certain parts are to be appreciated in special occasions, they are not so easy to be taken. The great track in the entire work is the haunting 'Careful with that axe, Eugene'; other songs from previous albums like 'Astronomy domine' or 'Set the controls...' are listenable as they were before; individual works like 'Sysiphus', 'Narrow way' and 'Grand Vizier's are not for beginners just like the weird 'Several species etc'. A Floyd fan that started his/her fandom after DSotM shall maybe have difficult to swallow "Ummagumma".

A work with several disputable moments but after all an obligatory record for any prog collection. Total: 4.