Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason

[FreeFour]

This post is to talk specifically about the 2019 remixed and updated edition of A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Having listened to this since it was released (I got the Later Years Box set as a Christmas present last year) I feel I now know it well it enough to compare it to the 1987 original release.

Firstly I need to declare that I got into Pink Floyd in the late 80’s and feel that I know and cherish the original release in all its 1980’s glory.

I had read several times over the years that David wanted to re-record the album and take the 80’s out of this album. For me, I always thought this was a strange thing to say because love or hate it, this is very much much an album of its time

In terms of comparison Signs of Life, Learning to Fly & Sorrow don’t seem to stray too far from the 1987 mother ship. I have a great deal of respect for the addition of some previously deleted Rick parts from Signs of Life, not sure its a better version but I have a great deal of respect for the change and inclusion of Rick

LTF feels slightly lighter, but not greatly different, slightly punchier but all in all a nice respectful update.

I would describe the 2019 version of Sorrow in similar terms. It feels more desolate than the original, it’s like 32 tracks have been consolidated down to 16.



Dogs of War is possibly my least favourite Floyd song along with some of the guff on Ummagumma. This song can only be 80’s bombastic and Nicks drumming just feels too low in the mix and sounds like an unprocessed drum along.

One Slip. To my ears this is a much muddier mix than the original. It doesn’t have the fizz of the original and sounds flat. The drumming sounds flat and low in the mix.

On The Turning Away. Really surprised by the change of vocal. Lifted from DSoT perhaps? Ricks playing is much more in the mix and all the better for it. Once again the drums are so low in the mix, too low in the mix for such a great song that builds over 6-7 minutes.

Yet Another Movie. Again the drums feel low in the mix and too dry. I have to say I do love certain elements of this version though. Again it feels thinner than the 1987 release, but some of the EFX and sampling is improved from the original

I will skip over Round and Round & New Machine parts 1 & 2 as these were always filler

Terminal Frost. Again it feels a slightly lighter mix, but Nicks drumming just doesn’t gel into the mix. This version probably acts as the best example of how the new mixes don’t sit comfortably with Nicks drumming and sound.

Overall I find the drum tracks too low and lost in the mix, which is particularly frustrating when you think this is Nick performing them and replacing the original hired hands. In all too many cases the drum tracks feels like drum alongs rather than a collaborative performance. This is such a shame and could easily be fixed.

An interesting project but not sure I prefer it to the original

[azza200]

One Slip i find is better then the original mix.
LTF i prefer the original mix as you said more punchier sound in the mix the vocals does sound like from another take.
OTTA the vocals are lifted from DSOT for some reason.

[cigar73]

One Slip i find is better then the original mix.
LTF i prefer the original mix as you said more punchier sound in the mix the vocals does sound like from another take.
OTTA the vocals are lifted from DSOT for some reason.

Gilmour is notes as being unhappy with his vocals on the studio version. Thus they’ve swapped them out for the DSOT vocals.

[ZiggyZipgun]

So what’s everyone’s thoughts on the remixed “Later Years” version of AMLOR?

I honestly didn't think they'd ever actually complete it, since Gilmour had said he'd wanted to "mix the '80s out of it" for years and had started working on it while Rick was alive, but I'm glad they did. I definitely prefer the remix to the original. I got into Pink Floyd shortly after The Division Bell came out, but the first album I heard was Relics, then Division Bell, then Dark Side of the Moon. It was hard to reconcile the vastly different sounds, and I wasn't sure they were all the same band, or that there wasn't more than one "Pink Floyd". I generally hated '80s music anyway, so A Momentary Lapse of Reason was the last of their albums to be added to my collection. Then again, I was 12. I've always liked "A New Machine", and I've always hated "Yet Another Movie", but the remixed version got me to listen more to the whole album. The difference is much more subtle than I anticipated, but just enough to tone down the obnoxious bits. It is funny that while "Yet Another Movie" sounds the least like Pink Floyd because of Patrick Leonard's involvement, he then worked on all of Amused to Death, and while people criticize the use of session musicians on AMLOR, Roger used considerably more session musicians on both KAOS and ATD to somehow end up with a much more sparse sound in both cases (four session bass players on ATD, by the way).

OTTA the vocals are lifted from DSOT for some reason.

If true, it's amazing that any live vocal track could easily replace the studio take on the album, especially considering that Roger has never not mimed "Every Stranger's Eyes", even in 1984.

[Annoying Twit]

Further up the thread I've expressed my opinion that AMLoR is an inconsistent album. Some classic Floyd songs, but some clunkers. I note the discussion of One Slip, but feel that no amount of remixing is going to fix that clumsy vocal melody.

[Kerry King]

Most of the problem for me is at the source. The input. It can't be fixed. It's the way they captured the sound and the actual tone of the instruments. The playing of the musicians. It's that whole mid 80s sonic mentality which was driven by commerce not artistry. This is the same era where they were telling people that cd was better than vinyl and slowing way down on the manufacturing of vinyl. The album is easily the worst pink floyd album. Guitar solos alone don't make it.

[space triangle]

When I think about AMLOR, I think Scott Page and his hair style!

[azza200]

him and Pat Sharp have the ultimate 80's mullets

[ZiggyZipgun]

This has been mentioned fairly regularly over the years, in forums and comment sections, anyway - but can anyone actually point to a quote from anyone (Roger included!) that Gilmour ever approached the record company about releasing a solo album, or about releasing AMLoR as a solo album, and being told no? Even according to Roger, Bob Ezrin had been hired no later than April '86 to work on a new Pink Floyd album, because that's when he bailed on Radio KAOS. Roger had issued his statement in December '85 saying that he was no longer part of the band, and had even agreed not to interfere with Dave and Nick's future Pink Floyd projects in order to get When the Wind Blows released. Dave and Nick then had new accounts set up to manage those projects, which promptly made Roger shit a brick and attempt to formally dissolve Pink Floyd as a business entity. Ezrin went to England in June '86 to go through Gilmour's demo recordings, including sessions with Jon Carin from earlier that year.

"We could have taken five years to make another album, but Roger looking over the gunsights at us made it happen in 10 months. There was absolutely no 'maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't.' It was 'let's do it now, who do we need, how will we do it.' It was galvanizing." - Nick Mason, 1988

So...when would this Gilmour solo album have been shot down?

[ZiggyZipgun]

From an interview in Creem magazine, Feb. '88:

Creem: When you went in to record this album, were there things that you felt you had to put on it in order to make it a Pink Floyd-sounding album?

DG: No, no, we had a load of demos...I had a load of demos that I had been working with, but basically we gathered in a studio in London - Nick and myself and Bob Ezrin, late September of last year - and some of my pieces were not as popular as others. We wrote some new stuff and threw others away and gradually we whittled it down.....

NM: And then we whittled it up. The first demos that Dave gave me had the Learning To Fly idea, it had the Dogs Of War idea; everything on it was potentially a good track and that's what it launched from.

Creem: Was it all new stuff or was it stuff that you'd been sitting on for a few years?

DG: The Dogs Of War track, without the lyrics, I has sitting around for maybe a couple of years; the Terminal Frost track, too.

NM: Some of it goes back even farther than that!

DG: Part Two of Signs of Life was actually done in 1977, I think. The guitar and the whistling answers was actually a demo that I did in '77 or '78. We had to replace the actual guitar, but the backing chords are from an ancient thing I did. Most of the rest of it was written within the past two years.

[ZiggyZipgun]

"We were down to a two-piece for a while, Rick having gone his own merry way for reasons that have been explained in great length and tedium before. So getting Rick and Nick back in were important. It was a tricky old period of time. There’s a myth that at some point we decided to turn a David Gilmour solo album into a Pink Floyd album. That’s not strictly correct. There were a few pieces of music that I had that helped us to get started. It’s a good album, it’s got some really good moments to it." - Gilmour, 2015

[theaussiefloydian]

^^
Interesting to read this. I feel like if anything else this illustrates that it was probably ill advised to release the album until they'd gotten Rick to play on it some more, and Nick's presence is not as large on it as it should have been with the drum programming, but the 2019 mix seems to have rectified much of these issues and I much prefer that mix these days anyway.

[azza200]

"We were down to a two-piece for a while, Rick having gone his own merry way for reasons that have been explained in great length and tedium before. So getting Rick and Nick back in were important. It was a tricky old period of time. There’s a myth that at some point we decided to turn a David Gilmour solo album into a Pink Floyd album. That’s not strictly correct. There were a few pieces of music that I had that helped us to get started. It’s a good album, it’s got some really good moments to it." - Gilmour, 2015

good find. Sadly people will always assume that is how this album started and that David was cashing on the name Pink Floyd by carrying on.

[dj865]

Something I think every time I hear this album.....A new machine (1 & 2).... why...just why?

[ZiggyZipgun]

Something I think every time I hear this album.....A new machine (1 & 2).... why...just why?

"Signs of Life", "A New Machine", and the intro to "Sorrow" are all built around the same riff that he came up with in '77 or '78, and for me, they're the highlights of the album.

"'New Machine' has a sound I've never heard anyone do. The noise gates, the Vocoders, opened up something new which to me seemed like a wonderful sound effect that no one had done before; it's innovation of a sort." - Gilmour, 1992

Delving into new technology is as much the theme of the album as anything else, but there are two songs that I think may have influenced "A New Machine":

https://youtu.be/lJ71NUL9Cp4

https://youtu.be/S39NaDPNDtk