Death and Miracles: A Journey Inside David Gilmour’s New Album

At a certain point he also dusted off a 1933 guitaramong the prized pieces of his vast collection: “It’s one of the very first electric guitars in history. It was built by Mr. Rickenbacker in 1933. The pickup is incredibly powerful. My wife Polly gave it to me: I don’t know how she came up with the idea”, smiles David Gilmour, showing off the Rickenbacker Frying Pan. The former Pink Floyd player plays it on “The Piper’s Call” and “Dark and Velvet Nights”, two of the eleven tracks on the highly anticipated “Luck and strange”, his new album of unreleased songs. The album will hit stores on Next September 6th – you can

already pre-order on the Sony Music website – and soon after the 78-year-old British musician will let you listen to it live for the first time in Rome, on the occasion of the six shows announced at Circo Massimothose scheduled for September 27, 28, 29 and October 1, 2 and 3. The album It’s David Gilmour’s first in nine yearsas many as have passed since the release of “Rattle that lock”. And it also promises to be one of the most inspired. Among candles and pedals scattered everywhere, in a series of videos published on YouTube to ease the fans’ wait, the author of some of Pink Floyd’s most iconic guitar riffs – starting with the one in “Wish you were here” – takes fans on a spiritual journey through his new album. “It’s very hard to describe exactly how guitar parts come out, because they just jump out at me and demand to be heard. I can’t really explain it, but it’s really fun when it happens right. But it’s annoying when a part doesn’t work: weeks go by and you’re looking for something, but you can’t find it,” he says.

The cover of “Luck and strange”, made by Anton Corbijn, former right-hand man of Depeche Mode:

“Luck and strange” was recorded in five months between Brighton and London. Gilmour produced it together with Charlie Andrew44-year-old British producer best known for his work with the indie band Alt-J: “We invited Charlie over to the house, he came over to listen to some demos and said, ‘Why does there always have to be a guitar solo? But do all the songs fade out? Can’t they just end?’. He has a wonderful lack of knowledge and respect for my past. He is very direct and not at all intimidated. For me he was ideal: I do not want compliant collaborators.”.

Most of the lyrics on the album were composed by .Polly SamsonGilmour’s wife. Samson explains that the album “It is written from the point of view of the older being: mortality is the constant”. “We spent a lot of time during and after lockdown talking and thinking about these kinds of things,” the musician adds. Mrs. Gilmour’s is not the only “family” contribution contained in “Luck and strange”. Twenty-two-year-old daughter Romany Gilmour sings, plays harp and appears as lead vocalist on “Between Two Points”remake of a song by the Montgolfier Brothers. The other son, Gabriel, 27, sings in choirs.

The guitars used by Gilmour in the eleven tracks of the album are all of the old generation, “because the new ones can’t give you the same things”. Among others, he also played a black Gretsch “from the mid 70s”: “It has a particular sound, very hi-fi”. That’s the one he played in January 2007 in the jam session in the barn at home together with Richard Wrighthistoric keyboardist of Pink Floyd.

That meeting took place two years after the band reunited for the Live 8 charity event and a year before Wright’s death. One of the songs born from that session remained in the drawer for seventeen years: it is the one that now gives the title to the album, which is in all respects .a virtual “duet” with Wright. “I’ve never played with anyone like him: all the greatest Pink Floyd moments are when he’s in full swing,” Gilmour said in the aftermath of his friend’s death.The Piper’s Call”, the first single from “Luck and strange”, instead talks about a Faustian pact, a dispute between the ego of a successful musician, the fame that fattens him and the drugs that suffocate his insecurity: who knows, maybe Gilmour had the rough diamond Syd Barrett in mind when he wrote it.

The album features contributions from musicians such as Guy Pratt and Tom Herbert (on bass), Adam Betts, Steve Gadd and Steve DiStanislao (on drums), Rob Gentry and Roger Eno (on keyboards), while Will Gardner took care of the arrangements for the strings and choirs. Not all of them, however, will follow him on tour. On the stage of15,000-seat arena to be set up at the Circus Maximus for the six shows scheduled between the end of September and the beginning of October – 90 thousand tickets sold: all the dates are sold out – of the musicians on the “Luck and Strange” sessions there will only be Pratt and Betts, alongside whom Gilmour has added musicians such as guitarist Ben Worsley, keyboardists Greg Phillinganes and Rob Gentry and backing vocals by Louise Marshall and the Webb Sisters.

Almost all very young musicians: “.I changed the band for various reasons, one of which was that it was all becoming too mechanical and some would have been better off in a Pink Floyd tribute band.”. Regarding the show’s setlist: Gilmour said he was “reluctant to do Pink Floyd’s 70s songs”. Only to then share a video on social media a few days ago in which he rehearses “Wish you were here” (1975) with Worsley: “There’s going to be at least one song from the ’60s. We’ve done ‘Astronomy Domine’ in the past: it puts people in the mood. And then the songs from ‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason’ and ‘The Division Bell’. For me ‘High Hopes’ is as good as anything we’ve done.”.