Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1979) – Immersion Box Set EMI – 7 Discs (6 CDs + 1 DVD)

Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1979) – Immersion Box Set EMI – 7 Discs (6 CDs + 1 DVD) includes 44-p. booklet designed by Storm Thorgerson, Gerald Scarfe art print, photo book, collector’s cards, replicas of tour ticket and backstage pass, art scarf, printed cards of Mark Fisher’s stage drawings, 3 brick-designed marbles in black bag, set of coasters, 8-p. credits booklet and lyrics booklet handwritten by Gerald Scarfe ****1/2:
(David Gilmour – guitar, synthesizer, clavinet, sound effects, vocals; Nick Mason – percussion; Roger Waters – guitar, synthesizer, sound effects, vocals; Richard Wright – organ, piano, Rhodes electric piano, synthesizer, bass pedals; Michael Kamen – orchestral arrangement; Bob Ezrin – orchestral arrangement; plus many others)


By 1979 Pink Floyd was regarded as the eminent band in rock. Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here raised the bar for conceptual music. Part of this strange alchemy was significant upheaval within the group. When the next album was discussed, Roger Waters submitted demos of a rock opera, already completed. The subsequent release, The Wall, would become the last momentous Pink Floyd album.

Pink Floyd The Wall Immersion Box Set is a seven-disc reproduction and historical account of this pivotal work. A conceptual album, the narrative follows Pink, a rock star who becomes desensitized by social institutions, including family (deceased father and overprotective mother), school (bullying), the music business (just about everything) and marriage (failure). As isolation and abandonment descend upon him, a metaphorical wall of bricks is constructed. At the core of the box set is the re-mastered studio album. Themes of alienation and psychic despair are merged with textured, creative Pink Floyd musical interpretations, orchestral arrangements, sound effects and striking vocals.

The material resonates…even after 30 years. “Comfortably Numb” is among the greatest of Pink Floyd songs. It is a true collaboration, whose haunting theme and searing guitar solo (Gilmour) blend seamlessly with Waters (bass) Mason (drums) and Wright (keyboards). The anthem “Another Brick In The Wall” mixes an unlikely disco beat with a wall of vocals featuring the Islington Green School Choir and guest vocalists like Toni Tennille and Bruce Johnston (There are numerous “credited” and “uncredited” contributors). “Run Like Hell” relies on jangly guitar wizardry, and “Mother” and “Goodbye Cruel World” reveal the gloomy ruminations of Waters’ past. The stark dysfunctional tone of the music never recedes. Like Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here, the there is a consistent, sequenced flow to the tracks.

In addition to the “extra” collectibles, there is a plethora of bonus music. While some box sets contain excessive perfunctory material, it is not the case here. A two-disc (#3 & #4) live performance by Pink Floyd is vibrantly innovative and balances musical context and theatrics. More impressive are the two (#5 and #6) CDs of demos by Waters and the band. The material is presented with takes in progression to facilitate the linear development of the songs. Gilmour’s demos of what would become “Comfortably Numb” include a wordless version and an early session titled “The Doctor”. There are cuts that didn’t make the album like “Teacher Teacher” and “Sexual Revolution”. “Another Brick In The Wall” is tied to march time, and “The Show Must Goes On” approximates a psychedelic Beach Boys opus. The final disc is a DVD that includes the 2000 documentary film Behind The Wall and a clip of footage (“The Happiest Days Of Our Lives”) from Earls Court in 1980.

While there is no Blu-ray or 5.1 Surround Sound (most likely, in the works), the sound quality is excellent (especially with a good set of headphones). Two album booklets boast Gerald Scarfe animation, Storm Thorgerson art design and concert photography, with superior production. Pink Floyd The Wall Immersion Box Set is compelling.

TrackList:

Disc 1 (Re-mastered studio CD): In The Flesh? The Thin Ice; Another Brick In The Wall, Part 1; The Happiest Days Of Our Lives; Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2; Mother, Goodbye Blue Sky, Empty Spaces; Young Lust; One Of My Turns; Don’t Leave Me Now; Another Brick In The Wall, Part 3; Goodbye Cruel World

Disc 2 (Re-mastered studio CD): Hey You; Is There Anybody Out There?; Nobody Home; Vera; Bring The Boys Back Home; Comfortably Numb; The Show Must Go On; In The Flesh; Run Like Hell; Waiting For The Worms; Stop; The Trial; Outside The Wall

Disc 3 & 4: Is There Anybody Out There: The Wall Live 1980-81 (30 tracks)

Disc 5: The Wall – Work In Progress Part 1, 1979: demos from Roger Waters and Pink Floyd (41 tracks)

Disc 6: The Wall – Work In Progress Part 2, 1979: demos from Roger Waters and Pink Floyd (23 tracks)

Disc 7: DVD Pink Floyd film archive; promotional video; Gerald Scarfe interview

—Robbie Gerson

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Source: audiophile audition.com

 

"Tear down this Israeli wall" - Roger Waters writes for TheGuardian, Friday 11 March 2011

"I want the music industry to support Palestinians' rights and oppose this inhumane barrier".

A Palestinian woman walks past the wall on the Israeli side of the Abu Dis neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Photograph: Kobi Gideon/EPA

In 1980, a song I wrote, Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, was banned by the government of South Africa because it was being used by black South African children to advocate their right to equal education. That apartheid government imposed a cultural blockade, so to speak, on certain songs, including mine.

Twenty-five years later, in 2005, Palestinian children participating in a West Bank festival used the song to protest against Israel's wall around the West Bank. They sang: "We don't need no occupation! We don't need no racist wall!" At the time, I hadn't seen firsthand what they were singing about.

A year later I was contracted to perform in Tel Aviv. Palestinians from a movement advocating an academic and cultural boycott of Israel urged me to reconsider. I had already spoken out against the wall, but I was unsure whether a cultural boycott was the right way to go.

The Palestinian advocates of a boycott asked that I visit the occupied Palestinian territory to see the wall for myself before I made up my mind. I agreed.

Under the protection of the United Nations I visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw that day. The wall is an appalling edifice to behold. It is policed by young Israeli soldiers who treated me, a casual observer from another world, with disdainful aggression.

If it could be like that for me, a foreigner, a visitor, imagine what it must be like for the Palestinians, for the underclass, for the passbook carriers. I knew then that my conscience would not allow me to walk away from that wall, from the fate of the Palestinians I met: people whose lives are crushed daily by Israel's occupation. In solidarity, and somewhat impotently, I wrote on their wall that day: "We don't need no thought control."

Realising at that point that my presence on a Tel Aviv stage would inadvertently legitimise the oppression I had seen, I cancelled my gig at the stadium in Tel Aviv and moved it to Neve Shalom, an agricultural community devoted to growing chick peas and also, admirably, to co-operation between different faiths, where Muslim, Christian and Jew work side by side in harmony.

Against all expectations it was to become the biggest music event in the short history of Israel. Some 60,000 fans battled traffic jams to attend. It was extraordinarily moving for us, and at the end of the gig I was moved to exhort the young people gathered there to demand of their government that they attempt to make peace with their neighbours and respect the civil rights of Palestinians living in Israel.

Sadly, in the intervening years the Israeli government has made no attempt to implement legislation that would grant rights to Israeli Arabs equal to those enjoyed by Israeli Jews, and the wall has grown, inexorably, illegally annexing more and more of the West Bank.

For the people of Gaza, locked in a virtual prison behind the wall of Israel's illegal blockade, it means another set of injustices. It means that children go to sleep hungry, many chronically malnourished. It means that fathers and mothers, unable to work in a decimated economy, have no means to support their families. It means that university students with scholarships to study abroad must watch the opportunity of a lifetime slip away because they are not allowed to travel.

In my view, the abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair-minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance.

Where governments refuse to act people must, with whatever peaceful means are at their disposal. For me this means declaring an intention to stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their government's policies, by joining the campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel.

My conviction is born in the idea that all people deserve basic human rights. This is not an attack on the people of Israel. This is, however, a plea to my colleagues in the music industry, and also to artists in other disciplines, to join this cultural boycott.

Artists were right to refuse to play in South Africa's Sun City resort until apartheid fell and white people and black people enjoyed equal rights. And we are right to refuse to play in Israel until the day comes – and it surely will come – when the wall of occupation falls and Palestinians live alongside Israelis in the peace, freedom, justice and dignity that they all deserve.
                                                                               Roger Waters

From: www.guardian.co.uk

Roger Waters & David Gilmour Interview 1972 (French)

Patrice BLANC FRANCARD s'entretient avec David GILMOUR et Roger WATERS, têtes pensantes des PINK FLOYD. Ils évoquent l'enregistrement de la musique du nouveau film de Barbet SCHROEDER, "La vallée", parlent de l'évolution de leur musique et de l'envergure de leur carrière. La fin de l'interview est illustrée par des images du groupe travaillant dans un studio d'enregistrement à Hérouvillle (en off, "The Gold it's in the..").

From: www.ina.fr

Pink Floyd on stage in Saint-Tropez 08/08/1970 (Part 1)

From:www.ina.fr

Pink Floyd on stage in Saint-Tropez 08/08/1970 (Part 2)

From:www.ina.fr