The Floyd-Hole: Every Pink Floyd Album - Part 4

 UMMAGUMMA - REVIEW

A good deal of this album consists of re-releases of existing songs (which I have already reviewed). However, the versions of the songs on Ummagumma are longer than their original iterations, and because they were recorded live, also contain subtle differences from the studio versions - for this reason, I will be reviewing the songs I have already reviewed again, however I will attempt to do so in a way that doesn't crib too much from my existing critique.

Astronomy Domine is up first, as last seen on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn album, though this version is twice as long. It features a heavy chugging guitar and frantically-tappy drums, which obliterates the lyrics and makes them sound faded and distant. Around the middle of the song, the guitar gets a little "noodly", almost improvisational, which I've always felt was a bit lazy from a song-crafting perspective. An organ fades in and out of the latter half of the song, and it again sounds like an improvisation, which I don't generally care for. Tempo and key changes abound in this one, though it all still feels like a single coherent piece.

Careful With That Axe, Eugene starts soft and almost feels relaxing, mostly consisting of organ music done in that sort of "quasi-Arabian" style (complete with snake-charmer flutes). This softness is broken shortly after the 3-minute mark by raspy screams, but it works with the song in a good way, reminding me of the nightmare throes of someone suffering from Apocalypse Now-style insanity (The horror... the horror...). The song winds down at the 6-minute mark, but its something of a false ending because it tapers off for another two minutes of soft keyboard music.

Rolling cymbals usher in the newer, longer version of Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, and then it shifts over the emulate that "quasi-Arabian" soundscape again, nicely connecting it to the previous song. The drumming and organ playing grows more and more frantic over time, really pumping energy into the music - it builds in crescendo until just before the 5-minute mark, and then snaps into gentle, almost relaxing softness (albeit with the usual zany PF sci-fi sounds thrown in). The latter half of the song feels flighty in spots, but the steady drum rhythm keeps things coherent.

This version of A Saucerful of Secrets is just as long as the original, but because it's live, it lacks a lot of the random sound effects of the original (like tinkling glass sounds). The organ playing is softer too, in a way that makes it feel less "haunted house" than the original version - an improvement I can get behind. The latter half of the song is still a ghostly funeral with strong and gloomy organ music, but it feels a little more upbeat than the original version because the organ playing is live and has less post-processing echo. There are no real lyrics to speak of beyond a melodic wailing, but at this point I'm realizing that PF is clearly trying to be an instrumental band, perhaps realizing that lyrics aren't as important for setting the right mental states (which is important in psychedelic music). 

Sysyphus begins like a grand imperial parade, complete with booming trumpets. Then it glides into sweet-sounding classical piano work, which is very much not what I was expecting - it still sounds improvisational though, and gets less gentle over time, and eventually turns into what I can only describe as "double-fisted piano mashing". Like Saucerful of Secrets, this song is made up of several smaller songs, though each one is very different and has a gap of silence between them that clearly delineates where one ends and the other begins. After the first gap, the second part of the song is jarring piano mashing and strange monkey wailing, being something of an interlude leading into the next bit of soft nature sounds, birdsong, and spacey organ music. The part after that again pulls a complete 180 on the tone, bursting through with loud noises and rolling cymbals before fading into even more haunted, improvisational organ playing. Everything is bookended with more "grand imperial parade" sounds finishing off the song. I can see why they called this song "Sysyphus" - you work hard to get to a place of relaxation, but then the boulder comes crashing down and gets you back on your toes.

Grantchester Meadows kicks off with straight-up nature sounds - birdsong and buzzing bees - and a gentle acoustic guitar overlay that creates a sense of calmness. A lot of nature sounds throughout, including what sounds like a honking goose landing on a lake. This one has that soft, twee hippie singing that characterized most of PF's earliest work. I believe the actual contents of the lyrics are generic and largely irrelevant - the sheer tone of it all is what's most important to building the gentle nature of the track. Thankfully, the song is gentle throughout - I fully expected a randomly mashed piano or crashing cymbal to harsh the mellow, but it never showed up. 

Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict wins the "most obnoxious song title award". It begins with more nature noises framed by what sounds like someone doing the hambone on their legs. The nature sounds get chaotic fast, with howling monkeys and wild bird screeches playing over a repeating tribal chanting sound that slowly fades out over the track. Then it sounds like little animals are the ones singing (although without coherent lyrics, obviously) - "singing" might be too kind a word for it; "wailing/screeching with melody" is more appropriate. The track ends with some kind of fevered, echoing Scottish gibberish for some reason.

The Narrow Way has a strong and pleasant wind-up of folksy acoustic guitar picking, and a sliding steel guitar that gives the beginning a very "country" vibe. Then the random sound effects and sci-fi stings show up, completely crapping all over the existing tone and ushering in a rock opera style of heavy guitar strumming and hefty bass drums. Sci-fi sounds run rampant throughout the first half - I think PF went a bit overboard with that stuff, personally. Halfway through, the tone again shifts back into something more relaxing and pleasant, complete with more of that soft twee singing. The singing is so gentle it's hard to make out the lyrics, but again, the tone is what's important here and it works. The whole track feels like two different songs stitched together, which is fitting considering the rest of the album.

The Grand Vizier's Garden Party starts with flutes (a new tool in the PF toolbox) and strange rising/falling kettle drums, before fading into haunting Blade Runner-esque noises and random sounds cutting in and out - very experimental stuff that I find difficult to call "music". It ends on a chaotic cacophony of drumming and then clips into gentle flutes again to wrap up.

Overall: Ummagumma is half-randomized and utterly chaotic. Even individual songs seem to sound like entirely different songs midway through. Maybe PF's intent was "emotional rollercoaster", but to me it feels more like "emotional dartboard", where they just throw and randomly pick a tone for an abrupt shift. There's no consistency here - some common elements (like nature noises) might thread through a few songs, but it comes off more like a lazy re-use of sounds rather than a deliberate thematic connection. The story here goes that the album was recorded half-live, half in-studio, and that PF deliberately distributed the creative workload among four minds, which may explain the patchwork nature of Ummagumma. As a result, instead of being a showcase that proudly exhibits different styles, it feels more like forcibly cramming all those styles into one small box, complete with little bits popping out and being crammed back into other songs.