{"id":28218,"date":"2024-09-30T05:30:51","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T09:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28218"},"modified":"2024-09-18T11:11:10","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T15:11:10","slug":"david-gilmour-the-right-place-to-be-sure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/30\/david-gilmour-the-right-place-to-be-sure\/","title":{"rendered":"David Gilmour: The Right Place to Be Sure"},"content":{"rendered":"

This feature first appeared in SPIN<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

A personal note: not only was this interview a bucket list item for me, its appearance here marks entry #5000 on Musoscribe<\/strong>. That represents about 2.5 million words<\/i>, roughly 25 books’ worth. More to come! — bk<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Three decades after Pink Floyd\u2019s final tour, the band\u2019s voice and guitar savors his freedom<\/i><\/p>\n

At the start of our conversation, David Gilmour makes it plain that he prefers to focus on the music he\u2019s making today. \u201cThe old Pink Floyd stuff is of scant relevance to me now,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I have a sense of feeling liberated from expectations of that.\u201d And that\u2019s fair enough: save for the one-off, 23-minute Live 8 reunion in 2005, the last time Pink Floyd played a full concert in front of an audience was October 1994.<\/p>\n

In the years since, guitarist and singer Gilmour has released two well-regarded studio albums (2006\u2019s On an Island<\/i> and Rattle That Lock<\/i> from 2015) and a pair of live albums. He has lent his signature guitar work to recordings by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Donovan, and Roxy Music\u2019s Phil Manzanera and Bryan Ferry; he\u2019s collaborated with electronic duo The Orb. On world tours in 2006 and 2015, Gilmour played a combined 80-plus performances. Those dates featured some classic Floyd material, but he has long been more interested in creating new music rather than basking in the glories of days long gone by.<\/p>\n

That perspective is underscored by Gilmour\u2019s newest release, Luck and Strange<\/i>, out September 6 from Sony Music. Like much of the music created in recent years, the music on Gilmour\u2019s new album was inevitably informed by the global pandemic. Working with his longtime songwriting partner (and spouse of 30 years) Polly Samson, Gilmour came up with nine new songs. \u201cWe were locked down,\u201d Gilmour says, \u201cand the things we discussed in our family were topics of mortality: \u2018These pandemics, maybe there\u2019ll be more of them.\u2019 And all of that had an influence on Polly\u2019s lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilmour says that Samson has \u201ca remarkable ability to\u2026 write from her own perspective, but have it [come out] universal.\u201d While Pink Floyd\u2019s music \u2013 mostly featuring lyrics by bassist Roger Waters \u2013 always featured emotional content, there\u2019s an accessible warmth and vulnerability to Samson\u2019s lyrics that sets it apart from the songs Gilmour sang in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

In the old days, Gilmour would sometimes collaborate on the instrumental side with his band mates in Pink Floyd. \u201cOn Meddle<\/i> and The Dark Side of the Moon<\/i>, a lot of work that we did was sitting in a rehearsal room and throwing ideas around,\u201d he says. \u201cFor Atom Heart Mother<\/i>, I came into the room with the main theme. That’s where it all started, with everyone joining and playing that, [followed by] weeks of developing it and moving it and adding pieces and taking away pieces.\u201d Today Gilmour\u2019s process is very different. \u201cI don’t have so many moments now when I am doing that in a room with a bunch of people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

After creating those pieces, he shares his recordings with Samson in an open-ended manner. \u201cI hope the music will reveal itself to Polly,\u201d he says. \u201cShe\u2019ll say to me, \u2018Do you have anything specific that you think this might be about?\u2019\u201d Gilmour says that while he might occasionally share a lyrical idea with his wife, the themes \u201care usually all hers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes the development process is a lengthy one. \u201cI write all the time,\u201d Gilmour says, \u201cbut there are pieces of music on Luck and Strange<\/i> that, in their birth state, go back as far as 1997.\u201d One song, the evocative and contemplative \u201cSings\u201d features a clip of the couple\u2019s son Joe \u2013 captured on MiniDisc when he was two \u2013 exhorting his dad to sing. \u201cHe\u2019s now nearly 30,\u201d Gilmour points out.<\/p>\n

Another of the album\u2019s standout songs, \u201cThe Piper\u2019s Call\u201d began its life four or five years ago. And the album\u2019s title track dates from a 2007 jam session with Pink Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright, who would pass away the following year. \u201cBut some of the songs are brand-new,\u201d Gilmour says.<\/p>\n

After Gilmour amassed a cache of song ideas, the task of making an album began in early 2023. \u201cWe did hide ourselves away in a little studio in London,\u201d Gilmour says. \u201cMore or less nine-to-five, five days a week, Polly and I were trying to move these half-formed ideas into something more substantial.\u201d<\/p>\n

The arrangements on Luck and Strange<\/i> add a wide-screen dimension to Gilmour\u2019s songs. \u201cThe Piper\u2019s Call\u201d features strings and a large vocal chorus; a close listen reveals dissonant harmonies and odd vocal improvisations. \u201cThere’s a guitar solo thundering on and a band playing,\u201d Gilmour notes, but he believes that Will Gardner\u2019s orchestration adds a whole level of excitement. \u201cIf you analyze it, these things are not strictly in tune, and they’re not strictly in time; it demands a different way of thinking to accept this.\u201d But he says that if one gives the song a few listens, \u201cthe illogical logic makes itself clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilmour co-produced the album with award winner Charlie Andrew, best known for his work producing Alt-J. And Gilmour affords Andrew much credit for Luck and Strange<\/i>\u2019s lush and expansive sound. \u201cPartly because they wanted to do a Dolby Atmos mix as well, Charlie and his lovely engineer Matt Glasbey have taken a different approach,\u201d he explains. \u201cWhere I would use one or maybe two mics to record something, they\u2019ll use ten<\/i>.\u201d He observes that their approach \u201cseems a bit mad, but it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the later years of Pink Floyd, Gilmour led the group without Waters\u2019 involvement. \u201cI was left in charge of this thing on my own, pretty much,\u201d he says. \u201cI never consciously tried to make things as if they were more related to our previous history; I just did whatever I thought was right.\u201d These days Gilmour is unencumbered by ideas regarding what his music \u201cshould\u201d sound like; he follows his muse wherever it might lead.<\/p>\n

On Gilmour\u2019s previous studio album, Rattle That Lock<\/i>, that thinking led to the creation of \u201cThe Girl in the Yellow Dress.\u201d The song\u2019s sumptuous Parisian jazz character would have been unthinkable on a Pink Floyd album. Gilmour is clearly inspired by the freedom and creative latitude that\u2019s built into his solo work, but he emphasizes that his approach is born of each moment. \u201cI would never try<\/i> to be eclectic,\u201d he emphasizes. \u201cI have invented some new things in terms of sound \u2013 like \u2018On the Run\u2019 from Dark Side<\/i> \u2013 but I\u2019m never searching for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though it was created with a lineup of support musicians that includes Guy Pratt, Roger Eno and ace session drummer Steve Gadd, Luck and Strange<\/i> is in many ways a Gilmour family affair. In addition to Polly Samson\u2019s lyrics, son Gabriel provides backing vocals on a few tracks, Charlie Gilmour contributed lyrics to \u201cScattered,\u201d and daughter Romany sings harmony and plays harp.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s Romany Gilmour\u2019s lead vocal on \u201cBetween Two Points\u201d that will attract the most notice. The song is a cover of an overlooked 1999 gem from The Montgolfier Brothers. Romany\u2019s haunting and luxurious vocal is a highlight of the record. \u201cHer voice on \u2018Between Two Points\u2019 is fucking brilliant,\u201d Gilmour says. \u201cIt makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.\u201d And the song is indicative of Gilmour\u2019s sense of liberation in making Luck and Strange<\/i>. \u201cNow,\u201d he says, \u201cas David Gilmour, I can do a cover of a song by someone else and have a daughter of mine sing it; I can do<\/i> that. And that is a freedom that I relish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilmour\u2019s 2024 live dates in support of Luck and Strange<\/i> are limited to 21 concerts in Rome, London, Los Angeles and New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This feature first appeared in SPIN. A personal note: not only was this interview a bucket list item for me, its appearance here marks entry #5000 on Musoscribe. That represents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28220,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,62],"tags":[635,1705],"class_list":["post-28218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-david-gilmour","tag-pink-floyd","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28221,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28218\/revisions\/28221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}