Pink Floyd
More

There is great rock music, and then there are Pink Floyd, who make history in their own right in the history of music. So much so that by their third album, after two (excellent) works that went almost unnoticed and following the painful departure of their Leader (and friend) Syd Barrett, instead of attempting a musical and perhaps commercial shift, they released the soundtrack for a decidedly non-Hollywood film with a first-time director Barbet Schroeder.

We are in 1969, the film and its soundtrack are called More. The film, not exactly memorable but not negligible either, tells a love story between two drug addicts, set in Ibiza, which at the time of the events was a haven for young hippies, including musicians and poets, somewhat like Greenwich Village in New York.

The story goes that the young Pink Floyd, after being commissioned for the film by the director, locked themselves inside the Abbey Road Studios in London for a week, engaging in jam sessions from which the thirteen tracks of the album were born.

The jam session atmosphere is very distinctly heard on the album, as none of the tracks sound "studied" or composed but rather like little fish caught along the turbulent course of a raging river.

Take for example Up the Khyber and More Blues: the former is a beautiful Jazz composition written and played by Mason and Wright, the latter engaged in a stunning sequence of dissonant chords played partly on the piano, partly on his organ, his personal showpiece and the band's distinctive mark; the latter is a blues rarity for Pink Floyd, who, although musically originating in a blues territory, hardly ever used it except in this piece, written by all four members but with a certain stylistic dominance of Gilmour.

Crying Song, Green is the Colour, and Cymbaline are three pieces by Waters (sung by Gilmour). They represent the peak of the album, three masterpieces with a strong folk flavor: one wonders what Bob Dylan would have given in years that were certainly not easy for him compositionally (those were the years of Nashville Skyline and Self Portrait) to compose such pieces with the same ease and improvisation as the four young Englishmen. Green is the Colour is a wonderful acoustic sketch, with a Van Morrison-like blues-soul flavor, characterized by acoustic guitar and piano and embellished with sweet flute notes (played by Mason's wife). Cymbaline has the same soul structure with a more jazz imprint, a singable refrain (not common in Pink Floyd's pieces of those years), and a beautiful organ ending by the great Wright (such an ending in live performances was much longer, one of the most beautiful things played by the Floyd's keyboardist: for such listening, I refer to the numerous live bootlegs in circulation). Crying Song is a psychedelic folk ballad, very close to Syd Barrett's style, embellished with a beautiful slide solo by Gilmour.

Another masterpiece of the album is Cirrus Minor, also a piece composed by Waters and sung by Gilmour. This track is among the most beautiful of Pink Floyd: it begins folk, with an acoustic guitar that in some ways anticipates If from Atom Heart Mother, but soon the extraordinary Wright takes center stage with moving melodic intersections of Organ, Hammond, and Farfisa. In my opinion, this intervention by Wright has the same beauty, albeit in a much more concentrated form, as what we will hear later in Echoes: I consider these two tracks the best interventions (among many) by the Floyd's keyboardist.

The Nile Song and Ibiza Bar are two Hard rock tracks, two seeds sown there by Pink Floyd for the benefit of many bands that in those years would give rise to the new genre (Black Sabbath): one could say, exaggerating, that they invented Hard Rock, only to immediately discard it: they had other miracles to perform in music. The tracks are sung with brute force by Gilmour who, as reported by those present at the recordings, was intentionally tipsy to give the piece more strength (it can also be heard in the raw sound of his guitar): never again would the London musician, known for his composed style, repeat the feat.

For many, including staunch critics and fans, this album does not belong in the Pink Floyd discography. I, on the other hand, recommend it, even to newcomers to the band: it would be a great way to get to know and love them.