Bjorn Riis, a long time friend of Brain Damage, and the guy who runs the excellent Gilmourish.com website, which focuses on David Gilmour's sound and equipment, is an accomplished musician in his own right, and at the end of next month, releases a four track EP, A Fleeting Glimpse, which includes a familiar sounding vocalist.

His new new single, Dark Shadows (part 1), features long-time Pink Floyd backing vocalist Durga McBroom on vocals; the track will appear on the EP, which will be released on September 30th. He told us: "My goal has been to write original material and trying to capture an authentic Floyd vibe without actually copying or doing covers. I’m performing lead vocals and guitars."

Riis is a founding member of the highly successful Norwegian progressive rock band Airbag. With his new EP, he said: "This is a work of passion. It's a chance for me to go back to my musical roots and pay a respectful homage. All four songs could easily have fitted on one of my albums but there is a seamless Pink Floyd vibe in all of them." The new music is said to capture the essence of Pink Floyd, from the mellow psychedelic soundscapes of the early 70s to the bombastic stadium rock of the 80s and 90s.

"I wanted to make it sound authentic, using gear and sounds that Pink Floyd would employ on a certain song or album. It really took me back to when I started to play guitar and experiment with tone and sounds." Apart from Durga McBroom, other guest appearances feature Arild Brøter, from Norwegian prog band Pymlico, on drums and Per Øydir on Farfisa organ.

If the taster, below, tempts you, you can order A Fleeting Glimpse at KarismaRecords.no.

In what seems quite a coincidence, bearing in mind our earlier story, this evening a newly reworked video for A Great Day For Freedom 2022 has just been released.

With the video, is accompanying wording talking about the background to it:

Using A Great Day For Freedom as the B-side of the new Pink Floyd single, Hey Hey, Rise Up seemed like an obvious and relevant choice. And David has, for some time, wanted to record a simpler more direct version of the song.

So here it is, with a newly edited video taken from a Pulse rehearsal during Pink Floyd’s two-week run at Earl’s Court, London, in 1994. The recording, using the original drums and bass by Nick and David, has keyboards by Rick and backing vocals by Claudia, Sam and Durga taken from the Pulse rehearsals. New piano, Prophet 5 synthesiser and Hammond are played by David, as on the original demo.

Without further ado, here's the new video:

Looking online, and going by some of the emails we've received here at Brain Damage, there seems to be a bit of confusion in some quarters over the credits for A Great Day For Freedom 2022, the new version on the physical, 7" and CD single release of Pink Floyd's Hey Hey Rise Up, which has been released to raise funds for Ukraine Humanitarian Relief. We've had it confirmed by Pink Floyd management that the credits on the single are 100% correct. The piano was re-done, the main synth was from David Gilmour's original demo, and the backing vocalists were added on to replace the orchestra.

For those who haven't seen them yet, here are the credits:
- David Gilmour: Vocals, guitars, keyboards
- Nick Mason: Drums
- Richard Wright: Keyboards
- Sam Brown, Claudia Fontaine, Durga McBroom: Backing vocals

We hope this information helps clarify what the situation is with this new version of A Great Day For Freedom, in particular, the personnel on it.

As you all no doubt know, Pink Floyd's Animals 2018 Remix is being released on CD, LP (with gatefold artwork), Blu-ray, and SACD on September 16th, and on October 7th, in Deluxe Gatefold format. Today (Friday, 22nd July) the first audio from the release has appeared, in the form of the 2018 remix of the magnificent Dogs, which you can hear below!

The Deluxe Gatefold version of Animals 2018 Remix includes the LP, CD, audio Blu-ray, audio DVD and a 32-page book. The Blu-ray and DVD audio include the 2018 remix in Stereo, 5.1 Surround (both by James Guthrie) and the original 1977 Stereo mix. The 32-page booklet features rarely seen behind the scenes photographs of the original album sleeve shoot along with live images and memorabilia.

We've had emails asking about the Blu-ray and DVD editions, enquiring whether there is any region coding. This is important for those who are looking to order from other countries, either due to availability, or price. We've had it confirmed that there is NO region coding on the discs, which is great news.

The album's iconic cover shows an inflatable pig (known as Algie) floating between two chimneys of London's Battersea Power Station, conceived by Roger Waters, and designed by long-time collaborator Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis Studios. For this new release, the artwork has been re-designed for the modern era by Storm's Hipgnosis partner Aubrey 'Po' Powell.

This newly released video, below, uses some animation with the new album cover design to complement the audio (albeit in lower quality than the eventual release) of Dogs, released today as an Instant Grat/Digital Single. Even with compression, the 2018 remix of Dogs sounds incredible! This new version can also be heard on various streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, in higher quality.

The full list of format details and audio formats can be seen here, and here are the direct links available to place your orders (which help us with Brain Damage's ongoing running costs, without costing anything further to you!). Amazon purchases before release will take advantage of their pre-order price guarantee, where you will automatically pay the lowest price offered between when you bought the item, and release. With regard to the SACD, this only seems to be available from a couple of retailers.