Reviews
You've been having a nightmare, and it's not over yet
The best of "Cymbaline"
I am a very instrumental guy. Don't get me wrong: I like lyrical songs, but instrumentals get me in a peaceful state of mind. In fact I regard "Marooned" as the Floyd's best song ever. The first thing I thought of when this issue was to be about instrumentals was a RoIO entitled Recurring Nightmare - The Best of "Cymbaline" that I listen to often.
 Recurring Nightmare - The Best of Cymbaline |
I always love listening to the instrumental section of "Cymbaline", especially the live versions. Occasionally, "Cymbaline" would be re-titled "Nightmare" on some live performances as part of The Man & The Journey live concept to beef things up. Just before "Nightmare" was an instrumental called "Sleeping", which was comprised of pre-recorded sound effects of a man breathing while sleeping, along with some music resembling "Quicksilver" off the 1969 More album. This two-song combination was performed in 1969 and early 1970. Later shows (late 1970-1971) often featured a much longer version of "Cymbaline" on its own.
In the middle of the song is a pre-recorded sound effects track of a man walking around and opening/closing doors. In the latter part of 1971, this 'Walking Sequence' also included the sounds of giggling child. There was also a roughly three-minute instrumental bit that they played right before the Walking Sequence, which I will call the 'Instrumental Interlude'. The Instrumental Interlude is very peaceful, and somehow reminds me of my childhood and the old neighborhood I lived in over 10 years ago. Ironically, I still dream (no pun intended) of my childhood and can still remember the details of the many memories.
The first song on this compilation disc is the original album version of "Cymbaline", written by Roger Waters. The song deals with dreams and nightmares. It contains a peaceful instrumental bit with a powerful organ ending the song. It runs less than seven minutes, and does so without the Walking Sequence and middle instrumental bit.
The second track is the live performance off of The Man and The Journey RoIO, from Amsterdam, Netherlands on September 17, 1969. "Sleeping" is very beautiful and peaceful. "Nightmare" begins with bass guitar repetitively plucking notes that lead up to vocals. The best part of this two-song track is the end where the instrumental section reprises that bass guitar note-plucking with the powerful keyboard that ended the song on a fade-out.
The third version on the disc was performed in San Francisco, California on April 29, 1970 at the KQED TV Studio. The Instrumental Interlude is powerful, with Nick Mason drumming away loudly while Rick Wright performed his magical keyboard touches towards the end. The Walking Sequence is rather short as well.
The fourth version was performed in San Rafael, California on October 17, 1970. The Instrumental Interlude was peaceful and led to a rather long Walking Sequence. The audience seemed to enjoy the walking sound effects as they cheer on. The Walking Sequence ended with a loud explosion-like door slam and the song continued on.
The fifth track was performed in Copenhagen, Denmark on September 23, 1971. The Instrumental Interlude had a newer keyboard layout with repetitious notes, and an organ playing variably at the same time. Once again, peaceful memories come to me every time. The Walking Sequence is relaxing and peaceful until that loud explosion at the end of the sequence that led the song to continue on to its end.
The next track included is from on October 17, 1971 in San Diego, California. This song is the one; the best version on this RoIO. So clear sounding. So good that I even have it on my computer where it sees repeated playing! This song indeed jogs those serene childhood memories. This song even begins with a powerful keyboard that helps start the song. The Instrumental Interlude is very beautiful, peaceful, and even romantic-sounding with its echoing keyboard notes! I can just hear it being used as part of the soundtrack of a romantic movie. This Walking Sequence had the giggling child, and the audience seems to approve, based on all the cheering, whistling, and clapping during the Walking Sequence.
The last version was performed in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 20, 1971. This concert was the end of their 1971 tour as well as the last time "Cymbaline" was performed. The recording is bass-heavy and a little distorted. This version is only adequate, but I like the heavy bass playing during the Instrumental Interlude. Again, the powerful keyboards complement the bass nicely. The Walking Sequence is not very clear as there is audio distortion, and again had that giggling child. The crowd seemed to be calm during this performance.
And there you have it: a good RoIO collection of several notable performances of "Cymbaline" from 1969 to 1971, along with the original album version. It is filled with the beautiful, peaceful, and memory-lane-walking experiences. Rather than inducing nightmares, it even helps me to have peaceful dreams.
The Camera Eye
Safety in numbers
Fractals: The Colors of Infinity on DVD
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Pink Floyd was largely known as an experimental band, and they wrote a number of instrumental songs, including "Interstellar Overdrive", "A Saucerful of Secrets", tracks from the soundtrack albums More and Obscured by Clouds, the classic instrumental pieces from The Dark Side of the Moon, and others.
While there are really no Pink Floyd bootleg DVDs that are strictly instrumental, I did come across an obscure title called Fractals: The Colors of Infinity, hosted by noted science writer Arthur C. Clarke. This is a 52-minute video that, while officially released only on VHS, has been liberated to DVD by Pigs On The Wing video production. Even though this program was released on VHS, don't look for it at your local video store. A quick search for it on the internet finds that this video is geared towards Universities and math students. The video features Arthur C. Clarke, Benoit Mandelbrot, Steven Hawking, and a few noted math scholars who discuss "The Mandelbrot Set", which has been called by some, "the thumbprint of god".
The Mandelbrot Set was discovered by mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot after researching original mathematic formulations by a French scholar in 1917. From a simple formula (Z = z^2 + C) based on plane coordinates, it was found that very complicated shapes could be generated, and if these shapes were repeated on the basic shape, the Mandelbrot Set would repeat itself indefinitely. These intricate shapes became known as "fractals" and became an art form in itself.
 Examples of the Mandelbrot set, taken from the Fractals: The Colors of Infinity DVD. |
So what does this have to do with Pink Floyd instrumentals, you ask? Well, the soundtrack for this documentary video is instrumental music performed by none other than our favorite guitarist, David Gilmour. It stands to reason that Gilmour would find this subject fascinating and lend his talents to such a project. The liner notes of the video state that much of the Fractals recordings come from demos created entirely by Gilmour at his Astoria Studios between the years 1991-1993. Some pieces of the Fractals soundtrack eventually found their way into Pink Floyd compositions, namely "High Hopes" from The Division Bell Other bits will remind the listener of previous Pink Floyd soundscapes such as "On the Run". It is unclear if Gilmour had any assistance in the studio with drums, bass, or synthesizer, but make no mistake it is the patented David Gilmour sound.
The music itself comes off with a very spacey feel to it. The narrative is very serious, and the music matches it with a somber tone. Synthesizer provides most of the basic tracks and the swirly space sounds we come to know from David Gilmour. The music picks up the pace as the program continues, but is mostly filler between narrations. At one point in the program Gilmour's lap steel guitar provides a sonic atmosphere while endless fractals replicate themselves on the screen. Overall the music is a perfect compliment to the morphing shapes.
While this is a fascinating math/science lesson, one could only wish that the music was stretched out longer. The video runs just 52 minutes and most of that is the narration, leaving only around 10-15 minutes of total music time. While this short length of music might not justify the cost of buying the video, if you can find this DVD in the trade circles its certainly worth a trade.
Thanks go to Pigs On The Wing videos for liberating this rare gem, otherwise many Floyd fans would never get the chance to hear such obscure recordings.