Pink Floyd - UmmaGumma Revisited

 This one is a real treat. A fan creation project. As I well know Floyd fans/fanatics are nuts. My younger years in the late eighties with mixer board, tape decks and the entire Floyd catalogue at hand mixed up some great various tapes. This post, Ummagumma Remix Assembly by Furry Animal takes the cake.
 Recorded over three discs, this is an imaginative re-envisioning of Floyds (probably) most experimental album, UmmaGumma. It takes from the original album and includes period correct outtakes and live tracks from the 1969 era. Long standing bootleg fodder such as Moonhead, Rain in the Country, Oneone are given new life through remixes and blended through alternate live versions instead of studio tracks. The feel of UmmaGumma, the weirdness, dark and strange is the constant. A true period piece. To add to the strangeness, this version attempts to present Gumma as a concept album, "this could have been PF's first concept album!" A passionate love affair with 1969 Pink Floyd I thought I had alone.
 Years ago, this collection/remix would have been concidered utter sacrilege as far as I was concerned. To mess, tamper and fool with any original Floyd mix was unbearable, worthy of Karmic death. Well, I guess I'm mellowing with age. Since I can honestly say I know my Floyd back to front, this came as a nice change. Like knocking a hole through a wall, you get a new view from the same room...  .*.*.*.*.*...
 Anyway. Umma revisited is a fun listen, but not without it's flaws. There are some brutal edits and occasionally mixes don't quite work, but all in all with the extended mixes, backwards recordings, sampling and wizardry, this project is a work of love from a hard core Floyd fan. Worthy of our attention, and good listen.

OneBrownMouse

*************

* Original Notes
"This is pretty avant-garde, isn't it?" 
- Roger Waters (hidden message in 'Several Species...')

!!!FANPROJECT - FOR TRADE ONLY!!!
!!!DO NOT EVER ENCODE IN MP3 OR ANY OTHER LOSSY FORMAT!!!

UMMA & GUMMA (Ummagumma Revisited)

~~~UMMA~~~ 
DISC ONE: STUDIO ALBUM
01. Sysyphus Part 1 
02. Sysyphus Part 2 / 
    The Violent Sequence (aka The Riot Scene, early Us & Them - from The Ultimate Zabriskie Point)
03. Sysyphus Part 3 (pitched down half a step)
    Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave (backwards)
04. Sysyphus Part 4 (1st half) / Grooving With A Pict
 (vocals only)

05. Sysyphus Part 4 (2nd half = part 1 reprise)
06. Oenone (from The Ultimate Zabriskie Point)
    / Selene (aka Moonhead aka Corrosion - BBC TV 7/69 documentary on the moonlanding)
07. Dythyramb from Grantchester Meadows (ripped from KQED DVD soundtrack 71_04_28)
08. Careful with that sickle, Cronus
    (aka Come In #51, Your Turn Is Up - film version for intro and end + soundtrack version 

for middle section - from The Ultimate Zabriskie Point)
09. The Narrow Way, Part 1
    (unknown song - soundtrack version - from The Ultimate Zabriskie Point)
10. The Narrow Way, Part 2
11. The Narrow Way, Part 3 (69-05-12 Paris Cinema London - from BBC archives)
12. The Embryo (from Works) 
13. The Grand Vizier's Garden Party: Entrance
14. Heart Beat, Pig Meat (from The Ultimate Zabriskie Point)
15. Nick's Boogie (London 66-67) / The Grand Vizier's Garden Party: Entertainment    
16. The Grand Vizier's Garden Party: Exit
17. Biding My Time (from Relics)

TOTAL LENGTH: aprox. 78min!

~~~GUMMA~~~

DISC TWO: LIVE 1ST SET
01. Grantchester Meadows
Recorded live at the Fillmore West, San Francisco, USA on 70-04-29
02. Astronomy Dominé
Recorded live at the Fillmore West, San Francisco, USA on 70-04-29
03. Impro on Interstellar Overdrive and Moonhead
Recorded live at Ernst-Merck Halle, Hamburg, West-Germany on 70-11-14
04. Grooving With A Pict
Recorded live at Ernst-Merck Halle, Hamburg, West-Germany on 70-11-14
05. The Embryo + Roger Introducing The Massed Gadgets of Auximenes
Recorded live at Ernst-Merck Halle, Hamburg, West-Germany on 70-11-14
06. Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Recorded live at the Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switserland on 72-12-09



TOTAL LENGHT: aprox. 60min

DISC THREE: LIVE 2ND SET
01. Sysyphus
Recorded live at the Town Hall, Birmingham, England on 70-02-11
02. The Narrow Way Part 1 aka Baby Blue Shuffle In D Major
Recorded in the BBC Maida Vale Studios on 68-12-02
03. The Narrow Way Part 3
Recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall, London, England on 69-04-14
04. The Pink Jungle / intro of The Labyrinth of Auximenes
Recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall, London, England on 69-04-14
05. Heart Beat, Pig Meat
Recorded live at the Town Hall, Birmingham, England on 70-02-11
06. Piano Impro
Recorded live at te Fairfield Hall, Croydon, England on 70-01-18
+ The Violent Sequence
Recorded live at the Theâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, France on 70-01-23
07. Biding My Time
Recorded live at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, The Netherlands on 69-09-21
08. Doing It
Recorded live at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, The Netherlands on 69-09-21
Recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall, London, England on 69-04-14

ENCORES:
09. Green Is The Colour
Recorded live at the University of Southampton, Southampton, UK on 69-05-09
10. Beset By Creatures of The Deep
Recorded live at the University of Southampton, Southampton, UK on 69-05-09
11. Biding My Time (reprise) aka Just another 12-bar
Recorded live at the Altes Casino, Montreux, Switserland on 70-11-22

TOTAL LENGHT: aprox. 65min

=======================================================================================

1. WHAT IS IT?
Revisiting UMMAGUMMA as if it was a band-album, including left-overs and alternate versions, plus some home-made edits. Giving it a brandnew concept. (So this could have been PF's first concept album!)

2. WHY?
The idea for this project came in mind when I considered it was a pity that "The Embryo" and "Biding my Time" were recorded for Ummagumma but left out in spite of the concept of making it a 'four-men-solo album'. My first thought was then to burn a copy of Ummagumma for myself, just including those songs at the end of the album. But then I thought: "Why not making it an extended alternate version?" Inspiration also came from Muabdib's studio remix of "The Man & The Journey" (which I recommand!) and  the enhanced Wall version "Every Brick In The Wall". 
It's obvious that the original concept of Ummagumma didn't work out like the band wished it to. Quotes from the band members are clear on this subject: 

"We all believed it was going to be one of the best things we'd ever put onto record, which I think it was at that time, but the stuff on the album isn't half as good as we can play." -Rick
"For me, it was just an experiment. I think it was badly recorded, the studio side could have been done better. We're thinking of doing it again." -David 
"This was absolutely not a band album. The live stuff sounds incredibly antiquated now [...]. We were looking for new ways of constructing an album, although I think what this demonstrates is that our sum is always better than the parts." -Nick

3. WHAT HAS BEEN DONE?
Well, I took the liberty to get rid of that solo-concept, and tried to mix what Ummagumma might have been if it was a real teamwork, giving it a different concept. I don't pretend I improved it, but I wished to include left-outs, unreleased material (principally from ZP, but which fits perfectly in the spirit of Ummagumma) and alternate versions. I had plenty of material (of different quality) to choose from, for 1969 was probably their most prolific year. Therefore I used as far as possible the best sources for those alternate versions, but except for the Zabriskie Point outtakes, quality failed in most of the cases. It's a pity even the audio rip of Grantchester Meadows from the Harvested's KQED DVD is only 19OKbps, hissy and had an annoying hum in the beginning. Other sources had less hiss but much more microphone noise! I tried the best I could to erase this hum and de-hiss it a bit withoput denaturating the audio spectrum with Noise Reduction.

Another thing I permitted myself is to rename some tracks in order to give it the mythological concept I conceived for the occasion. I took inspiration by the example of Sysyphus and Oenone and gave Greek mythological references to the whole album, hence Cronus instead of Eugene, Selene (goddess of the moon) for Moonhead, and a Grand Vizier's Garden party which became an authentic Roman orgie! I recommend you to read the liner notes while listening, for I tried to make it more or less conceptual with a storyline. In contrary, I left the original titles for the live set.
The choice of including 'Careful...' is less obvious, since this is a 68 song. But, I found it a shame that only the single version was available on official sources, and no version of this tune appears on the regular albums. This december 69 take of Careful for the ZP soundtrack is radically different and much closer to what we use to hear on live roio's. The sound effects aer from the film itself, only the stereo effects for the footsteps and the riding car are mine. Other things that could be considered as 'sins' to some purists: I messed a lot with Sysyphus, integrating 'The Riot Scene' from ZP (aka The Violent Sequence, early Us & Them), 'Several Species...' backwards and the Pict rant without animal noises in it. Hence 'Several Species..' has 

disappeared from the tracklist! But figure out in case of teamwork, Roger would maybe have done the same. Moreover you can clearly hear Roger rant more or less in the same part on the live version of Sysyphus (a fact I discovered AFTER mixing the studio album!!!)
 The same 'dammages' occured to Nick's piece.
Figure out Syd came to help him get this piece a little more attractive!


4. WHAT ABOUT THE LIVE SET?
The live set isn't a gathering of alternate takes of what was originally on the live set of Ummagumma, but more what it would have sounded like if the band had once played (my) Ummagumma live. So here is a REAL live Ummagumma album, assembled from the most "mythic" 

shows from 69-70 where the Floyd performed their strangest bits with an incredible energy. Especially on that night in Hamburg 70-11-14, Roger was in an incredibly talkative/rantic mood! Notice that powerful 'Embryo' including some jungle noises à la 'Several Species...' and 'Pow R. Toc H.' Alas and again, the shows featuring the rarest tracks like 'Moonhead' or 'Sysyphus' were badly recorded, and most sources are hissy, muffed, etc. The huge quality difference between the different sources I used, forced me 

to use fades between some tracks, which I don't like but was the only way to make it sound acceptable. The SQ skips are more particulary noticeable in the 'meddley' I made. 

A special note about 'The Narrow Way Part 3' though. The best recording is the one from the Amsterdam venue of 'The Man & The Journey'
. Musically, however, Dave's vocals are probably the worst he ever did in his whole life! His voice fails on all live performance of 'The Narrow Way'. That's why I choose this recording from the London premiere of 'The Man & The Journey': it's not the best source, but at least the vocals are barely audible, which is not a real loss in this case! :-)

CONCLUSION
I still hope you'll enjoy listening as I enjoyed mixing and compiling this.


Furry Animal - May 2004

UMMA

GUMMA