Pink Floyd - Ummagumma

Although I have never been too much of an experimenter, I have always held a fondness for mind expansion/altering and psychedelic (although not usually progressive) music. I discovered Pink Floyd in the early 70's, after Sid, but well before their commercial success with more pop-oriented songs. This, their fourth album, was an exercise for the members in that they were all given a portion of the record to perform solo pieces with no input from the others. Being a double-album set, they also included a live record of the group performing selections from Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Relics and Saucerful of Secrets.

The live record consisted of a total of four songs, as they opted for long pieces where they could stretch out on solos, work with dynamics and incorporate hypnotically repeating riffs, ambient noises, echo'd slide guitar, and hair-raising shrieks. The set opened with "Astronomy Domine", Syd Barrett's intro to Piper... that moved into the murderous "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" and, on the flip, "Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun" and "A Saucerful of Secrets".

The studio album is home to the member's personal workouts, starting with keyboardist Richard Wright's "Sysyphus (Parts I-IV)", a somewhat classical treatise, utilizing several different styles of keyboards along with percussion, which he also performed. In "Part 3", he adds sound effects and affected vocals before returning to spacey/noisy keys for the final, "Part IV", and reprising the theme from "Part I". Bassist Roger Waters is up next and opts for an acoustic ballad in "Grantchester Meadows" in which he plays guitar and bass and harmonizes with himself. In his humorously titled "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave Grooving With a Pict" he also combines percussion and treated vocals for a very trippy piece.

Dave Gilmour's "The Narrow Way (Parts 1-3)" also commences with a ballad-y acoustic guitar piece (with some extraneous, psychedelic flourishes) which segues into "Part 2", the heaviest bit on the second record, with a ferocious'n'evil-sounding electric guitar riff that has more trippy elements running over it. In "Part 3", it quiets down again for a harmony-driven tune reminiscent of his work on Dark Side of the Moon. For drummer Nick Mason's segment, "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party" he has a little help from an uncredited flautist (his wife, Lindy) and proceeds to run his drum kit through a number of different effects for the three parts of this odyssey.

Definitely for acid-rock/psych-heads only, but quality stuff. This has always been one of my fave post-Syd albums.