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VERY BEST WISHES AND STAY WELL - your friends at Brain Damage
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.
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.
Out today in many regions are the two physical versions of Pink Floyd's first newly recorded music in over 25 years, 'Hey Hey Rise Up'.
The single, which was initially released digitally in April in support of the people of Ukraine and reached number 1 in 27 countries, is available on 7” and CD single. Both formats also feature a newly reworked version of 'A Great Day For Freedom' taken from the band's 1994 album, The Division Bell. The single is available today (15 July), excluding Japan, where it is released on 3 August, and USA, Canada, Australia and Mexico, where it is released on 21 October.
The Floyd community is starting to receive their copies if ordered online - others will be picking up from their local record store - and there's already a good reaction to the release. With the lead song being available back in April, the principle talk (other than the decent packaging of this limited release) is of the B-side/second track, 'A Great Day For Freedom', which is detailed below. This new version seems to be going down very well with fans, with its stripped back sound and fresh approach working well.
The lead track sees David Gilmour and Nick Mason joined by long time Pink Floyd bass player Guy Pratt, with Nitin Sawhney on keyboards, and features vocals by Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Ukrainian band Boombox. Proceeds for the physical release and the ongoing digital proceeds will go to Ukraine humanitarian relief.
For this limited edition release, David Gilmour revisited The Division Bell track 'A Great Day For Freedom'. He has reworked the song using the original tapes which feature Nick Mason on drums and Richard Wright on keyboards, along with backing vocals from Sam Brown, Claudia Fontaine and Durga McBroom. The music for this song was composed by Gilmour with lyrics by Polly Samson and himself.
Talking about the inspiration for 'Hey Hey Rise Up' Gilmour commented, "Any war, but particularly a war that is started by a world superpower against an independent democratic nation, has got to raise enormous anger and frustration in one. As I said before, I have a small connection there; my daughter-in-law is from Ukraine. And the band Boombox are Ukrainian people that I already knew, not well, but from some time ago. It’s an enormously difficult, frustrating, and anger-making thing that one human being could have the power to invade another independent democratic nation and set about killing the population. It’s just obscene to an extent that is just beyond my belief."
Being a limited release - with proceeds to Ukraine humanitarian relief - it is worth securing your copy soon to avoid disappointment or hiked prices trying to track down a copy on eBay. Here's a selection of places you can get the two editions:
Our friend José Abellán of the Spanish Animals Pink Floyd Magazine has just completed a special edition of the publication, which focuses on Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets (more details below), and as part of it, he had the opportunity to ask Nick some questions about the current tour. Thanks to José, we can share the English version of the interview, here...
'Echoes' is the name given to this tour. After Richard Wright's death in 2008, David Gilmour said that he would not play this song again because it was a dialogue between him and Wright. Nick, how do you feel about this song?
I totally disagree with David on this. David couldn't imagine... well, In 2008 no one had any idea that this was going to happen, and I think that this is a really important celebration of some of Rick's playing and it would be a tragedy to not play it. I believe respect is to play it. We don't particularly agree on that. We decide what we think is good for us, I guess.
You have already said that you don't see the point in playing the same songs that the fans already listen to at David Gilmour and Roger Waters concerts. What will the show be like and what songs will be played at the concerts in Spain?
The biggest difference is that we are working on the early Pink Floyd catalogue and it's very different to what Roger does with The Wall and David as well. Someone said we are an old style garage band and have to be a lot more in the spirit of Pink Floyd in 1967, 1968, 1969; the music should be a bit freer, and we should be able to improvise a little bit. The music is generally taken from what we made before 1972 so that includes Piper, ah, Saucerful Of Secrets and Meddle as well as some of the least well known singles. I think for people who remember these, there is an element of nostalgia but I hope that for people who really don't know very much of old Pink Floyd will enjoy it but also see how the ideas developed over the years.
WELCOME TO BRAIN DAMAGE, YOUR PINK FLOYD, NICK MASON, DAVID GILMOUR AND ROGER WATERS NEWS RESOURCE!
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 
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!
Out today in many regions are the two physical versions of Pink Floyd's first newly recorded music in over 25 years, 'Hey Hey Rise Up'.
Our friend José Abellán of the Spanish 
