After listening to Roger Waters’ upcoming re-recording of The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason said his former bandmate’s new renditions are “absolutely brilliant.”
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“He actually sent me a copy of what he was working on,” said Mason. “And I [wrote] to him and said, ‘Annoyingly, it’s absolutely brilliant.’ It was and is. It’s not anything that would be a spoiler for the original at all. It’s an interesting add-on to the thing.”
Waters, who left Pink Floyd in 1985, recently revealed that he had re-recorded the entire 1973 Pink Floyd album prior to its 50th anniversary and with an entirely new concept. “The new concept is meant to reflect on the meaning of the work, to bring out the heart and soul of the album, musically and spiritually,” said Waters. “I’m the only one singing my songs on these new recordings, and there are no rock and roll guitar solos.”
At first, Waters’ updated The Dark Side of the Moon was a project Mason said he didn’t know much about at first.
“I heard the rumor that Roger was working on his own version of it,” said Mason. “There was this suggestion that this was going to be a spoiler and Roger was going to go head-to-head with the original version and so on.”
The drummer added, “One of the things I like about any sort of existing piece of music is to develop it or find some extra quality in it. I just like this idea of developing music rather than trying to retain it exactly as it was.”
In 2022, Waters also released a new version of Pink Floyd’s The Wall classic “Comfortably Numb,” which he recorded during the U.S. leg of his This Is Not A Drill Tour. The new “Comfortably Numb 2022” was co-produced with Gus Seyffert, and was released along with several other newly recorded tracks on Waters’ Lockdown Sessions album.
Waters is currently on the European leg of his This Is Not a Drill Tour, which is set to wrap up in Manchester, England on June 10.
Mason is currently performing early Pink Floyd music with Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp under the band name Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets. Along with Eric Clapton, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, and other artists, Mason recently signed a petition for one Waters’ canceled German performances to be reinstated. Waters’ two upcoming concerts in Germany were canceled because of his reported antisemitic views.
Photo by Brian Lima / Rogers and Cowan
