Pink Floyd: Ummagumma - 1969

 

Nick Mason said of this album, which was a double - the first half a live recording, the second a studio creation - that "....I thought it was a very good and interesting little exercise, the whole business of everyone doing a bit. But I still feel really that that's quite a good example of the sum being greater than the parts ...". 

I remember as a young teenager in 1972, pre-Dark Side Of The Moon, that those boys I knew who were (incomprehensibly, to me) into Pink Floyd treated this album as the Holy Grail - the best The Floyd had to offer thus far. Hmmm. It is notable how many of the group's members, in retrospect, criticised their early work. 

Anyway, to the studio album - each band member has their own particular chance to shine - Sysyphus being keyboardsman Richard Wright's piece of indulgence. To me, it gets nowhere - the keyboard sounds are neither tuneful not appealing discordant. The piece just doesn't go anywhere, being made up of ambient noise, really. Not for me. A total waste of listening time. 

Roger Waters' Grantchester Meadows is far more appealing - a bucolic, acoustic folky number that is not like anything else the group ever did, not at all.  
 
Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict is four minutes plus of pointless repeated tape sounds and animal noises. What? You mean people listen to this for pleasure? Surely not? Some may find it deliciously bonkers I guess. 

David Gilmour's guitar (acoustic and electric) dominated piece, The Narrow Way, is the one that holds the most appeal for me. Its last part holds the most hints of subsequent Floyd music, with its ethereal vocals and solid but walking pace rock backing.  
 
Drummer Nick Mason's The Grand Vizier's Garden Party takes six minutes of pointlessness with occasional drum noises to wake up into an actually all-too-brief drum solo. Bar a few minutes here and there, personally I find this album an unlistenable waste of my time. Sorry. 

The live album is much more accessible, to a point, although it is still too rambling and ambient for my liking (that is just personal taste). The four cuts all improve on their studio equivalents but they all go on way too long and simply don't excite me. Roger Waters' bass guitar work is excellent, I have to say, as indeed are Mason's drums. Look, I'm just not really a Floyd man, am I? I have gone into their weird world with my eyes and ears open but I remain unconvinced, particularly by this. 

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