Forget loud halls, screaming fans, and the usual rock posturing – Live at Pompeii is not a concert, it’s a ritual. In 1972, Pink Floyd meets the spirits of antiquity, and what emerges is pure psychedelic alchemy: four musicians, surrounded by lava rock, send their sound into the endless expanse of the ancient amphitheater – and now, more than five decades later, finally pressed into warm, vibrating vinyl.
This isn’t about choruses or sing-along moments. This is a sound journey. The two-part “Echoes” – over 20 minutes of fluid sound that rises from nothing, twists, grows, explodes, collapses back in on itself, and is reborn. Gilmour’s guitar floats like a sunbeam through mist, sometimes singing, sometimes screeching, sometimes just being. Wright’s keyboards flow like liquid light – organ waves, synthesizer streaks, a celestial atmosphere to sink into.
Waters and Mason? A rhythmic primal force. The bass pulses like a heartbeat beneath the earth, the drums roll like a thunderstorm across the sound horizon. No beat here is accidental; every measure seems part of a larger plan – or dream.
“Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” is not a song, it’s a cosmic invocation. Spherical, meditative, hypnotic. And “A Saucerful of Secrets”? A thunderstorm of sound that slowly gathers and dissolves into radiant light. The band doesn’t play songs – they create spaces. Spaces in which you lose yourself.
This is where the sound lives. You hear the echo of the walls, the gentle crackle of the amplifiers, the breathing timing. The warmth, the hiss, the layers – on vinyl, this trip is tangible. Digital was a film – on vinyl, it’s a vision.
Live at Pompeii is not just an album to listen to – it’s one to dive into. A monument of sound, light, and shadow, captured between past and future. With the vinyl release, it returns to where it belongs: on the turntable, amid smoke, candlelight, and open minds. Just let go and travel.
-Helge Neumann
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