The new issue of the UK's Uncut Magazine (cover date June 2019) went on sale on Thursday (April 18th), is available now in all good stores, and available online worldwide, and as you can see, has Pink Floyd as its cover stars.

The ten-page article looks at the transitional period of the Floyd - writer Tom Pinnock discovers a band reconfiguring themselves and their creative aesthetic following the departure of Syd Barrett – via a run of bold, experimental records that are considered by many among their best.

It makes for a fascinating read; the story is brought up to date with a piece looking at Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets, who are concluding their US and Canada tour this evening, and are back in the UK next week for a string of shows, before spending much of July performing around Europe.

If you can't find the June 2019 issue of Uncut at your local UK store, order online now. The issue comes with a unique 15-track CD curated for Uncut by The National. Elsewhere in the magazine, you’ll find Scott Walker, Bob Dylan, Primal Scream, JJ Cale, Cate Le Bon, Peter Perrett, Aretha Franklin, Mac DeMarco, Dinosaur Jr, Dylan Carson, Africa Express and much more.

As the North American leg of the 2019 Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets tour heads towards it's conclusion, prior to the string of UK dates at the end of April/start of May (with a number of European dates in July), last night saw the band at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.

Much to the surprise of the audience, as the band readied themselves to start Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, a familiar face appeared on stage, as BD contributor, Ken Langford explains: "Roger delayed the start of the song by making maybe a minute's worth of comments. He then proceeded to sing the lyrics for Set The Controls, to bang the gong, to almost leave before the song was over, and then to finish out the song. The mallet for the gong broke at one point, and I said to my companion "Break The Hammer Again." Listen to the recording of 11th March 1973 for the reference.

"He hugged every member of the band, and appeared again on stage for the final bow after Point Me At The Sky. A fantastic treat for all in attendance!"

Nick and his band are back at the Beacon tonight, but we suspect lightning won't strike twice - guest appearances like this are normally very much one-off events. 

Videos and pictures are starting to appear of the appearance, and this article at the Brooklyn Vegan is a great place to start. The following picture is from their Instagram page:

Just announced: helping to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Pink Floyd's The Division Bell, a limited release of the album in translucent blue, heavyweight vinyl as a 2LP set, is coming on June 7th, 2019. It echoes the original limited blue vinyl release by Columbia Records in 1994.

It will be joining the other albums released by the band's new label - Pink Floyd Records - and will bear catalogue number PFRLP 31. Featuring the 2014 master by James Guthrie, Joel Plante and the late Doug Sax of the Mastering Lab, California, it comes as a double LP (as did the 2014 black vinyl release) to ensure all the songs are presented in full. The original 1994 single vinyl release required the songs to be edited to fit.

As expected, the packaging is of high quality again; the records are housed in a gatefold sleeve with four different images of specially-created heads, and two full-colour lyric/image inner bags. On its original release, the album debuted at number 1 in the UK, US, Australian and New Zealand album charts, reaching the top spot in six other countries, and to date has sold over 12 million copies.

At the time, David Gilmour said: "The three of us went into Britannia Row Studios, and improvised for two weeks. Playing together and starting from scratch was interesting and exciting, it kick-started the album and the process was very good, it was collaborative and felt more cohesive."

Ordering links: We're sure it's going to be one that many of you won't want to miss out on. If you do want to add this to your collection, please use these direct links to help support the running of Brain Damage: Amazon UK, Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon Spain and Amazon Italy. Not all the ordering pages are live, but should be very shortly.

A reminder for you, should you need it: on Saturday, Record Store Day 2019 Pink Floyd are re-releasing their second album, A Saucerful Of Secrets on vinyl. Remastered by James Guthrie, Joel Plante and Bernie Grundman from the original 1968 analogue mono mix, the release is the latest from Pink Floyd Records, which has supported Record Store Day (RSD) since the label's launch in June 2016.

The limited-edition Record Store Day release is on premium 12" 180 gram black vinyl, with a black poly-lined inner sleeve, and a faithful reproduction of the original sleeve, including the Columbia logo, under which imprint (via EMI) the early Pink Floyd released in the UK. The Columbia logo has been used by kind permission of owners Sony Music Entertainment.

Originally released in June 1968, A Saucerful Of Secrets represents a change in line-up and direction. Co-founder and original songwriter Syd Barrett contributed only one song to the album and his live appearances became more erratic. So unreliable were Syd's live appearances that fellow founder members, Roger Waters, Rick Wright and Nick Mason decided to draft in David Gilmour, a friend of Syd's, also from Cambridge.

The album reflects this transition, containing a mixture of material, from the almost music hall Corporal Clegg through Rick's dreamlike and melodic See Saw and Remember A Day to the title track – an 11-minute, four part instrumental excursion that both harked back to their UFO freakouts and looked forward to the longer, more anthemic instrumental sequences that were to become one of their signature elements.

This mono edition of A Saucerful Of Secrets follows the popular RSD release of The Piper At The Gates of Dawn in mono in 2018, and is released via RSD participating stores on Saturday (13th April). A reminder that it will ONLY be these stores participating; the stores themselves can't sell it online - the record will become available for customers coming through the door of the store from the morning of the 13th (and not before), in limited quantities - first come, first served, and only one copy per customer. After RSD, if copies remain, they may then put them for sale online (and of course, there'll also be copies on eBay inevitably...)

The full list of RSD releases for 2019 is available at www.recordstoreday.com.