Echoes

OK, some history first. I pretty much grew up with Pink Floyd in the background, blasting though my dad's beloved Bose 901s. He'd put on his albums - The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, A Momentary Lapse of Reason - and play discreet air guitar for what felt like hours. (God love him.) So, The Floyd, aside from being one of the greatest bands of all time, has a special place in my mind. I've been fascinated with their music for as long as I can remember.

One album, though, enchanted me above all the others. Meddle. Take a look at the cover:


This record is amorphous. It's not an easy one to grasp. It's even a little creepy. Echoes, the twenty-three minute cut - on what was Side B back in 1971 - is the prelude to the rest of the band's career. It's fucking breathtaking. And while I recommend that you listen to the whole track - hell, the whole album - in order to appreciate it fully, here's the best part:

Skip ahead to 14:45 and begin with the crescendo. The pillowy keyboards sound like they're rising slowly out of some cold, dark, subterranean place. And then, somewhere around minute 16 or 17 the muted guitar and cymbals roll in. It goes on like this, Rick Wright, gradually building drama on the keyboards, until 18:13 when: oh. my. god. David Gilmour [pictured below] launches into one of the most mesmerizing and out of this world lines ever written. Listen to it! He played that. In 1971! We're talking ten years before U2, or any of the experimental post-punk of the early '80s. You should go and listen to that right now and hear what it sounds like when sonic ground is being ripped wide open. It's the best, dude.

Here's the man who did it. The Aural Saviour himself, Mr. David Gilmour:


Seriously, when I listen to Echoes, I wonder why I even bother to play guitar. I know I will never write anything as dramatic and spellbinding as what you'll find in that song. Enjoy.