As the team of musicians around the two official members of Pink Floyd grew, the music started to take shape. However, David Gilmour wasn’t getting on as well as he had hoped. Roger Waters related something that Michael Kamen, the arranger of the orchestral parts of The Wall and The Final Cut, had said to him: apparently Bob Ezrin had told Kamen the tracks were “an absolute disaster, with no words, no heart, no continuity.”140 Again according to Waters, Steve Ralbovsky, an artistic director from CBS who had traveled to London, had been so disappointed on hearing the first recordings, because they had so little in common with the Pink Floyd aesthetic, that he urged Gilmour to start all over again. David Gilmour’s version of events could not be more different: “A tissue of lies,” he told Mark Blake. “I never stopped and started again. […] Steve Ralbovsky did come down and wanted to hear a few things. He was a mate. It’s entirely possible he wasn’t impressed with it. We’d only been at it for three weeks, and there was a track I’d played him a year before that I’d done at home with [session drummer] Simon Phillips.”1 Gilmour added: “Whatever his thoughts were, he kept them to himself. We carried on, and by Christmas we had upped a gear and were on our way forward.”1
A Lengthy Labor
The guitarist-songwriter was looking for a theme for a concept album, to continue the approach adopted on all Pink Floyd albums since The Dark Side of the Moon, and, in particular, for a lyricist who, while he may not outshine Waters, could at least prove a worthy successor. With this in mind, he first approached Eric Stewart (the ex-member of 10cc), then Roger McGough, a member of the Liverpool Poets (associated with the Beat movement), who, as well as having written dialogue for the movie Yellow Submarine (1968) by the Beatles and formed the rock band the Scaffold (with Peter Michael McCartney, the brother of Paul), had translated several Molière plays into the English language and published numerous collections of poems. When the collaboration with the 10cc songwriter and the Liverpool poet failed to produce anything very tangible, Gilmour turned to Carole Pope, the Canadian poet and singer with the band Rough Trade. “The idea to contact me came from Bob Ezrin,” Pope commented. “It was January of 1987 and they were looking for somebody to rewrite a batch of David Gilmour’s material, so I went over to England for a few weeks to lend assistance. Bob and David also asked me if I had any suggestions for concept albums in the Pink Floyd style. By the time I left England in February, they still couldn’t decide what to do.”142 So the plan to produce a new conceptual work was abandoned, but not the search for a decent lyricist. In the end they settled on a former member of Blackhill Enterprises called Anthony Moore, an avant-garde musician and writer who, after living in Germany for a while and founding the trio Slapp Happy, had returned to the United Kingdom and recorded with Henry Cow and Kevin Ayers. It is he who wrote the lyrics to “Learning to Fly,” “The Dogs of War,” and “On the Turning Away.”
Toward a New Aesthetic
Titled A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Pink Floyd’s thirteenth album was released in the United Kingdom on September 7, 1987 (and the next day on the North American continent). It consists of eleven tracks, all of them composed by David Gilmour, either individually or in collaboration with Bob Ezrin, Jon Carin, Phil Manzanera, or Pat Leonard. However, to suggest that this was a solo album by the guitarist (accompanied by Mason and Wright) in the same way as The Final Cut was a personal opus by Roger Waters (accompanied by Gilmour and Mason) would be an exaggeration. Despite Waters’s absence, and the fact that Nick Mason and Rick Wright only really played second fiddle, the album does nonetheless come close to the classic Pink Floyd sound—at times very close, particularly on “One Slip,” “Terminal Frost,” and “Sorrow” (albeit without achieving the same kind of atmospheric ambiances as Meddle, The Dark Side of the Moon, or Wish You Were Here).
A Momentary Lapse of Reason would reach number 3 on the charts in the United Kingdom and the United States. It would fare even better in New Zealand, where it made it to number 1, and in West Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway, where it peaked at number 2. In France it sold some 550,000 copies. The press, meanwhile, remained generally lukewarm. “Neither progressive nor regressive, they just appear to have stopped,”143 wrote Edwin Pouncey in NME, while William Ruhlmann referred to Gilmour’s atmospheric instrumental music, adding that the music lacked a unifying vision and Waters’s lyrical direction.145 Roger Waters, meanwhile, resorted instead to dark irony: “I must say that, under the circumstances, it’s a superb title for a so-called Pink Floyd record.”142 He also labeled it a quite clever forgery and branded Gilmour’s lyrics very third-rate. All in all, it was probably Graeme Thomson, writing in the special issue of Uncut magazine dedicated to Pink Floyd, who best summed up the interest it awakened across a broad audience: “A Momentary Lapse Of Reason announced the return of Pink Floyd, which ultimately meant the chance to go [again] to an arena and hear them play ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ and ‘Money.’”81
Indeed the day after the release of the album in North America, Pink Floyd embarked on a long tour—the first since The Wall and, more significantly, the first without Roger Waters. It had been organized by the Canadian Michael Cohl, an old hand who had been in the business since the sixties. Tim Renwick (guitars), Jon Carin (keyboards), Scott Page (saxophones, guitars), Gary Wallis (percussion), and backing singers Rachel Fury and Margaret Taylor all took part alongside David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Rick Wright. The “Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour” kicked off on September 9, 1987, in Lansdowne Park, Ottawa (Canada), finishing with the show at Knebworth, in the United Kingdom, on June 30, 1990. Between these two dates, Pink Floyd played close to two hundred concerts, taking them from the United States to Europe via New Zealand, Australia, and Japan.
David Gilmour could ultimately draw reassurance from both the album sales and the incredible success of the tour, “a rehabilitative process for all of us,” he later commented. This success would from that point on enable them to establish a credible presence, without the help of Roger Waters: “When the three of us sit down and play, it sounds like Pink Floyd. There’s a very distinct value in that, which was important for me to discover. There’s something there that’s bigger than any one person’s ego.”29
The Sleeve
Very telling! After a different approach on The Wall and The Final Cut, both of which bore the imprint of Roger Waters’s headstrong personality, David Gilmour decided to call once again on the talents of Storm Thorgerson for the sleeve of A Momentary Lapse of Reason. The idea for the river of hospital beds disappearing into the distance was prompted by the song “Yet Another Movie,” in which Gilmour sings: a voice that lied/The sun that burned a fiery red/The vision of an empty bed. The other image the brilliant designer had in his mind, as he revealed in his book, was “a lonely rower, or sculler, rowing himself down a dry cracked river bed. This was a reworking, I realise, of the swimmer in the dune for Wish You Were Here.”65 For the cover shot, seven hundred beds were carefully lined up on Saunton Sands beach in Devon (where several scenes from The Wall had also been filmed), and not in Death Valley, California, which had been the original plan. In the center of the picture is a man sitting on one of the beds, while on the right we can make out several dogs lying on the sand close to the shore (a reference to the song “The Dogs of War?”) and, in the distance, an aircraft in the sky. It was a nightmare to produce, as Thorgerson recalled: “Not at first, but later. There were three tractors with trailers, several carts, thirty helpers, dogs and dog handler, two models and two photographers, Bob Dowling and his young assistant Tony May (…), and one microlite.”65 Dowling scooped a gold award at the Association of Photographers Awards for this image. Inside the sleeve, we find a black-and-white photograph of the Floyd “survivors,” Nick Mason and David Gilmour (not Rick Wright, as he was no longer an official band member, but a “guest”), taken by David Bailey.
Recording on the River
David Gilmour recalls a car journey along the Thames one evening in 1986: “I had been banned f
rom driving for drunk driving for a year, being silly. So I was being driven, rather than driving myself, and as you’re driven you sort of look out of the windows a lot more and as we drove along we looked, I looked out, and I saw this metal work on the top over the wall, and I said to the chap driving: ‘Can we just pull over here and have a look?’ And we pulled over and we stood on the pavement, we stood on the corner there and peered over and looked down and saw this incredible boat and this water and work on the top. And I thought ‘Oh, that’s fantastic.’”146 The boat in question was none other than the Astoria, a mahogany-framed houseboat 27 meters in length, resembling a steamboat, built a century previously for the famous impresario (and mentor to Charlie Chaplin) Fred Karno, the upper deck topped by a vast metalwork canopy and large enough to accommodate an entire ninety-piece orchestra! A few weeks later, David Gilmour happened to discover that the boat was for sale, and bought it. He moved it from Taggs Island to Hampton Court and decided to install a recording studio, because he felt he spent too much time cooped up in recording studios with no windows. “David, aided and abetted by Phil Taylor, had constructed a studio in the converted dining room,” Nick Mason wrote, “a shade on the small side, but with sufficient room for a drum kit, bass guitar and electronic keyboards. The control room, built in the main living room, had windows looking over the river on two sides and across the riverside gardens on the third.”5 Bob Ezrin remembered: “Working there was just magical, so inspirational; kids sculling down the river, geese flying by.”1
So the recording of A Momentary Lapse of Reason got under way in the hushed environment of the Astoria. The sessions took place between November 1986 and March 1987. Bob Ezrin later explained that because of the lack of space on board, they were not able to have their usual guitar amps in the room with them, so they opted for smaller models instead. As the Canadian producer put it: “After playing around with them in the demo stages of the project, we found that we really liked the sound. So a Fender Princeton and a little G&K [Gallien-Krueger] amp became the backbone of Dave’s guitar sound for that record.”29 As producer, Ezrin introduced the band to new technologies such as samplers and drum machines. The equipment could be used to touch up the drum parts, for example. This proved to be a touchy subject for Nick Mason, who wasn’t feeling in top form: “In fact, I found myself overwhelmed by the computers on this record,” he confessed. “I hadn’t played seriously for four years and didn’t even like the sound or feel of my own playing. Perhaps I had been demoralised by the conflict with Roger.”5 Indeed, Waters had amiably described Mason’s contribution to the Floyd as negligible. For most of the tracks he found himself forced to relinquish his drumsticks to heavyweights like Jim Keltner and Carmine Appice. He would come to regret this: “In hindsight I really should have had the self-belief to play all the drum parts.”5 But, as he rightly observed, neither he nor Gilmour had enough self-confidence after Waters’s departure.
In February, recording moved to Mayfair Studios and Audio International Studios, both in London, which the band had used once before, for The Final Cut in 1982 and 1983. Britannia Row Studios was used as well. Bob Ezrin was feeling homesick and suggested the recording sessions be continued in larger studios closer to home, in Los Angeles. So the musicians all flew out to California, where, between February and March 1987, they worked at A&M Studios, the Village Recorder, and the Can-Am Studios in turn. “In the A&M Studios, we were able to admire the talents not only of Messrs [Jim] Keltner and [Carmine] Appice,” Nick Mason commented, “but also Tom Scott’s saxophone and the keyboard work of Little Feat’s Bill Payne.”5
Andy Jackson was at the controls for the recording and mixing. The sound engineer, who had also worked on The Final Cut, was in charge of the technical production of the album, but also the various sound effects. James Guthrie, who had worked with him on the last Floyd record, was only involved in one remix (“Sorrow”). Nick Mason recalled that, on hearing the first version of the mix in Los Angeles, he had been dismayed by what he heard. He found it much too muddled and overloaded. Fortunately this issue would be resolved on the final mix. All the same, the album was still a far cry from what he had been hoping for. It wasn’t Pink Floyd enough for his tastes, with the exception of “Learning to Fly.”
The assistant sound engineers were Robert “Ringo” Hrycyna (Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel, the Kinks), who had recorded the voice of Trudy Young in Toronto for “One of My Turns” on The Wall; Marc DeSisto (Mark Knopfler, U2, Patti Smith); Stan Katayama (Aerosmith, the Temptations, Judas Priest); and Jeff DeMorris (Sheila E., R.E.M., Cher). Not forgetting the indispensable Phil Taylor, who, besides his role as technical and instrument supervisor, was handed the delicate task of installing a full-fledged recording studio in David Gilmour’s houseboat.
Technical Details
David Gilmour had wanted to reuse his old Soundcraft 2400 console on the Astoria. However, Phil Taylor, entrusted with the job of installing a studio worthy to be used for the next Pink Floyd album, convinced him to change it for a DDA AMR 24. There was definitely a Studer A80 twenty-four-track tape recorder, used for the recording of all the drums and the bass guitars to preserve the roundness and warmth of the analog sound. The other instruments and vocals, on the other hand, would be recorded on a Mitsubishi digital thirty-two-track tape recorder (probably the X-850 model), a first for the band. In terms of the main monitors, the studio was equipped with Urei 813s, with Phase Linears (in all likelihood Pro 700s) for amplification.
In 1986 the Audio International Studios in London were equipped with a superb custom Cadac 48x24 console, with an Eventide Harmonizer, a Marshall Time Modulator, and a Lexicon 200 digital reverberator. The Mayfair Studios, meanwhile, had opted for Studer/Sony 3324 tape recorders and an SSL 6072 E console with Urei 813B monitors. Finally, at the A&M Studios in Los Angeles, Pink Floyd got to use George Martin’s old console, the Neve 4872.
The Instruments
David Gilmour eventually abandoned his “Black Strat,” which he lent to the Hard Rock Cafe at the end of 1986 in exchange for a donation to the Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy Centre charity. In 1984 he had purchased several Fender Stratocaster 1957 reissues. Of these, a cream-colored Strat and another in red with a maple neck became his favorites. But on the album it was mainly the red guitar—the ’57V—that he played, fitted with EMG pickups and a shortened tremolo arm. Keen to try something new, he also opted for a white Steinberger, the famous headless guitar. In terms of amplification, according to Bob Ezrin he was usually plugged into a Gallien-Krueger (250 ML MKII combo) and a Fender Princeton. Phil Taylor, meanwhile, pointed out that the Gallien-Krueger, which was set to overdrive, was itself linked to a Fender Super Champ set to a clean sound. And to obtain his trademark sound, Gilmour used a Boss CS-2 pedal for compression, a TC Electronic 2290 for delay, and a Yamaha SPX90 for stereo chorus. Taylor also mentioned that very often Gilmour liked to play on his amp, which was beside him in the control room.
Although he only joined the recording sessions for A Momentary Lapse of Reason relatively late on, Rick Wright is credited as having played principally the Hammond organ B-3 and C-3, the piano, and especially the Kurzweil K250 (K1000?), the first digital synthesizer to use samples in its sound banks. There was another keyboard present, a Roland Super JX (JX-10), but it is not certain that Wright himself played it. It was more likely Bob Ezrin, Jon Carin, or Pat Leonard. Then there was the vocoder, probably the Roland VP-330 Plus, which can be heard on “A New Machine,” used by David Gilmour.
As for Nick Mason, he stuck with his Ludwig, but added a Simmons electronic drum kit (the best of the genre).
The Musicians
Releasing a new Pink Floyd album proved a real challenge for David Gilmour and Nick Mason. It needed to be flawless, in terms of both lyrics/composition and production, as the band’s fans and Roger Waters would be sure to pounce on any shortcomings. Since Nick Mason was having trouble getting back into the swing of things, and Rick Wright came on board too late, Gilmour was
keen to make sure that the playing was top-notch at every stage of recording. To achieve this, he surrounded himself with fifteen or so musicians from elsewhere, all of them big names in their respective fields. However, A Momentary Lapse of Reason suffered as a result of this overly diverse lineup and the new technologies that tended to get in the way of a group sound.
The fifteen musicians were as follows:
Carmine Appice was the drummer with the New York band Vanilla Fudge from 1966 onward, then joined the band Cactus, before getting involved in various collaborations, notably with Rod Stewart and Duane Hitchings, with whom he co-wrote the international hit “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” in 1978.
The keyboardist Jon Carin, who was also involved in the writing of one of the songs on the album (“Learning to Fly”), carried on working with Pink Floyd afterward, and collaborated on some of Gilmour’s and Waters’s solo projects.
The percussionist Steve Forman began his career in the early seventies. Having become a prominent figure on the Californian rock scene after the recording sessions for Ray Manzarek’s solo albums and two Poco albums (Head Over Heels, 1975; Indian Summer, 1977), he worked on a number of highly diverse collaborations, from Art Garfunkel (Fate for Breakfast, 1979) to Jennifer Warnes (Famous Blue Raincoat: The Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1987), to Glenn Frey (The Allnighter, 1984). Followed, in 1987, by the recording sessions for A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
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