2 days Ago
In October 2023, took to the London Palladium’s stage to perform his Redux version of ’s epochal, career-defining album . He’s become an increasingly outspoken and controversial figure, and many Floyd fans have looked on with dismay as they feel he threatens to trash his former band’s reputation by association. Similarly, his re-recording of has been received by some as just a button-pushing exercise in his ongoing battle with .
And yet this is far from an act of cultural vandalism. It may be self-indulgent in places – a man at odds with the world augmenting a sacred text with additional spoken words – but it’s an interesting and often affecting take. It’s here reissued alongside a recording from the Palladium, with both versions presented on gold vinyl, CD and Blu-ray, including Dolby Atmos and 96/24 Audio mixes.
The set also includes 10” singles of , , and with etched B-sides, a track-by-track Waters video interview, and a 40-page book of photos. Fifty years after the original’s release, is like a ghostly but persistent afterimage – yet while the studio version is sometimes subdued to the point of torpor, the Palladium recording sees the piece come to life: amid the passages of sepulchral gloom, there are moments of real beauty as well. Time is retains a subtle power, with haunting theremin and elegant cellos where Gilmour’s grandstanding solo used to be One such moment occurs early on, where the chiming but icy guitars of are tempered by a lonely swirl of theremin, indicative of a sonic presentation that’s lusher and more expansive in its live setting.
Waters delivers his vocals in a gravelly baritone, and sometimes struggles to nail the melody, but he gets strong support from his backing singers onstage. The stripped-down electronics of act as effective backing for Waters’ “standard bullshit fight with evil” anxiety dream before concluding that “the voice of reason” is the only thing that can save us. is another of ’s ‘big’ songs; it’s reduced in volume but retains a subtle power, with haunting theremin and elegant cellos where Gilmour’s grandstanding solo used to be.
Mournful Moog and low-key backing vocals turn into a soft lamentation befitting Waters’ moving monologue about the death of a friend. And has the wryly comical gait of a cowboy’s horse plodding into town – mocking strings swoop and dive; and not for the first time the growling resonance of Waters’ voice recalls Leonard Cohen. These songs may sound in their dotage, Waters seems to be saying, but better that than being preserved in aspic.
Joe is a regular contributor to Prog. He also writes for Electronic Sound, The Quietus, and Shindig!, specialising in leftfield psych/prog/rock, retro futurism, and the underground sounds of the 1970s. His work has also appeared in The Guardian, MOJO, and Rock & Folk.
Joe is the author of the acclaimed Hawkwind biographyDays Of The Underground (2020). He’s on Twitter and Facebook, and his website is . “It did sound like the nightmare Tony McPhee was trying to describe.
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