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Rating:
'Ummagumma' can be considered a mysterious, hermetic album, and it's thought that rock had never reached such a high level of experimentation, the masterpiece of Pink Floyd, a milestone of music from the last century.
Like me, I believe that the majority of listeners prefer the live part; "Astronomy Domine" is beautiful, as are the imposing "A Sacerful Of Secrets," the whispered "Careful With That Axe Eugene," and the chanting "Set the Controls For The Heart Of The Sun." All these tracks are stretched out and performed in the name of psychedelia. However, they are all previously released on other albums, all longtime staples of the group. For the second album, which comprises the studio part, velvetunderground's words in his review seem appropriate: 'Ummagumma' is chaos! Disorder, genius, and unruliness, it's a drunken, clear sound that dances lightly and confusedly toward a light, toward infinity, toward itself, toward freedom!
He almost convinced me because it's true; the musicians' intent was precisely that. I've gone back to thinking that 'Ummagumma' was a half-successful album after re-listening to the studio part, which in my opinion contains only a couple of good compositions "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict" and "The Narrow Way Part One" - too little for a double album, even less to consider it a milestone. I'm not against experimentation; I'm against bad music (according to my tastes, of course).
In the past, Stravinsky's music was considered chaos, disorder, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker were genius and unruliness, even Pink Floyd will remain in music history (especially thanks to Barrett and Waters). However, I far prefer the earlier works, "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" and "A Sacerful Of Secrets," which were already avant-garde, and I consider them the group's best works.
PS I am a great admirer of Pink Floyd, whom I consider the most important in Rock history, and I love almost all their works, even "The Dark Side Of The Moon," "Wish You Were Here," "The Wall," and "Meddle" are must-haves.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
01 Astronomy Domine (08:29)
Lime and limpid green, a second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew.
Floating down, the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground.
Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda
And Titania, Neptune, Titan.
Stars can frighten.
Blinding signs flap,
Flicker, flicker, flicker blam. Pow, pow.
Stairway scare Dan Dare who's there?
Lime and limpid green
The sounds surrounds the icy waters underground
Lime and limpid green
The sounds surrounds the icy waters underground.
03 Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (09:12)
Little by little the night turns around
Counting the leaves which tremble at dawn
Lotuses lean on each other in yearning
Under the eaves a swallow is resting
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
Over the mountain watching the watcher
Breaking the darkness waking the grapevine
One inch of love is one inch of shadow
Love is the chateau that ripens the wine
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
The heart of the sun...
Witness the man who raves at the wall
Making the shape of his question to heaven
Whether the sun will fall in the evening
Will he remember the lesson of giving?
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
The heart of the sun...
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Other reviews
By velvetunderground
Ummagumma is chaos! Disorder, genius and unruliness, it’s a drunken, clear sound that dances light and confused towards infinity.
Not suitable for those who believe that music is just a simple melody to hum!
By Torre Ste1
This is the first post-Barrett work, in which the band members do not deny the psychedelia of their predecessor, but do not refuse to experiment with new sounds.
David Gilmour manages to give the group a new sound that will characterize them for the rest of their career and make them a key band in the history of music.
By floydsound95
"Ummagumma is an album worth listening to, even though it is not easy to do so."
"The album’s gem... foreshadows the subsequent Pink Floyd sound."
By 33giri
This vinyl support is miraculous and indescribable, as the artistic completeness is at its highest level.
There is the vital breath, the dedication, and the zeal of the imaginative, chimerical master from Cambridge: Roger Keith Barrett.
By score_angel
You don’t know whether to choose the first or the second as better.
Once you’ve well understood and digested all that experimental phase, you don’t just put it on a shelf thinking you’ll dust it off sometime later.
