Pink_Floyd_Ummagumma_Gatefold_Vinyl_LP_Set_Harvest_Records_1969

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37

Pink Floyd Ummagumma 2LP Vinyl Set
Capitol Records, EMI, Harvest Records. Recorded In England

Ummagumma is a double album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was released on 25 October 1969, through Harvest Records. The first disc is a live album that contains part of their normal set list of the time, while the second contains solo compositions by each member of the band recorded as their fourth studio album.

Although the album was well received at the time of release, and was a top five hit in the UK album charts, it has since been looked upon unfavourably by the band, who have expressed negative opinions about it in interviews. Nevertheless, the album has been reissued on CD several times, along with the rest of their catalogue.

The album is also notable for its artwork, featuring a number of pictures of the band combined together to give a Droste effect. Like several other of the band's covers, it was designed by Hipgnosis.

The album's title supposedly comes from Cambridge slang for sex,[1][2] commonly used by Pink Floyd friend and occasional roadie, Ian "Emo" Moore, who would say "I'm going back to the house for some ummagumma". According to Moore, he made up the term himself.[3]

Although the sleeve notes say that the live material was recorded in June 1969, the live album of Ummagumma was recorded live at Mothers Club, Birmingham[4] on 27 April 1969[5] and the following week at Manchester College of Commerce[4] on 2 May of the same year.[5] The band had also recorded a live version of "Interstellar Overdrive" (from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn) intended for placement on side one of the live album, and "The Embryo", which was recorded in the studio before it was decided that the band members each come up with their own material.[4]

The studio album came as a result of Richard Wright wanting to make "real music", where each of the four group members (in order: Wright, Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason) had half an LP side each to create a solo work without involvement from the others.[4] Wright's contribution, "Sysyphus", was named after a character in Greek mythology, usually spelled "Sisyphus",[6] and contained a combination of various keyboards, including piano and mellotron. Although initially enthusiastic about making a solo contribution,[7] Wright later described it as "pretentious".[4] Waters' "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict" contained a variety of vocal[8] and percussion effects treated at various speeds, both forwards and backwards, and was influenced by Ron Geesin,[8] who would later collaborate with both Waters and Pink Floyd.[9] Gilmour has since stated he was apprehensive about creating a solo work, and admits he "went into a studio and started waffling about, tacking bits and pieces together",[10] although part one of "The Narrow Way" had already been performed as "Baby Blue Shuffle in D Major" in a BBC radio session in December 1968.[11] Gilmour said he "just bullshitted" through the piece.[4] He asked Waters to write some lyrics for his compositions, but he refused to do so.[4] Mason's "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party" featured his then wife, Lindy, playing flute[8] and Mason playing a nine minute drum solo.[4]

The cover artwork shows the members of the band, with a picture hanging on the wall showing the same scene, except that the band members have switched positions.[12] The picture on the wall also includes the picture on the wall, creating a recursion effect (i. e. the Droste effect), with each recursion showing band members exchanging positions. After four variations of the scene, the final picture within picture is the cover of the previous Pink Floyd album, A Saucerful of Secrets. The latter, however, is absent from the CD release; instead, the recursion effect is seemingly ad infinitum. Hipgnosis also prepared an advert for EMI repeating the exercise with different band positions, Richard Wright now as the dominant seated figure hitherto the least so on the album cover. The illustration was bigger than the cover therefore the number of iterations toward infinity had to be increased.[citation needed]

The cover of the original LP varies between the British, American/Canadian, and Australian releases. The British version has the album Gigi leaning against the wall immediately above the "Pink Floyd" letters.[5] At a talk given at Borders bookstore in Cambridge on 1 November 2008, as part of the "City Wakes" project, Storm Thorgerson explained that the album was introduced as a red herring to provoke debate, and that it has no intended meaning. On most copies of American and Canadian editions, the Gigi cover is airbrushed to a plain white sleeve, apparently because of copyright concerns; however the earliest American copies do show the Gigi cover,[13] and it was restored for the American remastered CD edition. On the Australian edition, the Gigi cover is completely airbrushed, not even leaving a white square behind. The house used as the location for the front cover of the album is located in Great Shelford, near Cambridge.[14]

On the rear cover, roadies Alan Styles (who also appears in "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast") and Peter Watts (father of the actress Naomi Watts) are shown with the band's equipment laid out on a runway at Biggin Hill Airport. This concept was proposed by Mason, with the intention of replicating the "exploded" drawings of military aircraft and their payloads, which were popular at the time.[5]

Song titles on the back are laid out slightly differently in British vs. North American editions; the most important difference being the inclusion of subtitles for the four sections of "A Saucerful of Secrets". These subtitles only appeared on American and Canadian editions of this album, but not on the British edition; nor did they appear on original pressings of A Saucerful of Secrets.

The inner gatefold art shows separate black-and-white photos of the band members. Gilmour is seen standing in front of the Elfin Oak.[5] Original vinyl editions showed Waters with his first wife, Judy Trim, but she has been cropped out of the picture on most CD editions (with the original photo's caption 'Roger Waters (and Jude)' accordingly changed to just 'Roger Waters').[5] The uncropped picture was restored for the album's inclusion in the box set, Oh, by the Way.[5]



Record one: live album

Side one
No. Title Recording date Length
1. "Astronomy Domine" (Syd Barrett) 27 April 1969 8:32
2. "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" (Roger Waters, Richard Wright, Nick Mason, David Gilmour) 2 May 1969 8:49
Side two
No. Title Length
3. "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" (Waters) 9:27
4. "A Saucerful of Secrets" (Waters, Wright, Mason, Gilmour) 12:48

Record two: studio album

Side three
No. Title Length
1. "Sysyphus" (Wright) 12:59
2. "Grantchester Meadows" (Waters) 7:26
3. "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict" (Waters) 4:59
Side four
No. Title Length
4. "The Narrow Way" (Gilmour) 12:17
5. "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party" (Mason)

Near Mint Condition!

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