Martin Glover, or as you might possibly know him, Youth, recently discussed what was David Gilmour‘s one wish about Pink Floyd’s 2014 album, ‘The Endless River,’ while he was producing the record.
It might have been a bit challenging to keep the cult Pink Floyd sound throughout the years, especially without Roger Waters or Rick Wright being there to feature their unique touches into the tracks. Still, even when maintaining the band’s cult sound was surely a tough job, it was nothing Youth couldn’t handle.
The rocker recalled how the recording sessions went, discussing how Dave clarified what he wanted from Pink Floyd’s then-upcoming record from the second he started working with him. As Gilmour and collaborator, Roxy Music icon Phil Manzanera, were planning to try new things out and experiment with the sound, the frontman requested that the album ‘sound like them.’
So, with all the musical experiments, Youth’s job was to make sure that the album carried Pink Floyd’s cult sound while also offering new perspectives. Not a tough job, right? Well, it was until Dave and Manzanera decided to divide the album into four sections, and that led to some confusion for the producer.
Glover recalled how he thought that the first section Gilmour sent to him consisted of their entire project, so he accidentally transformed a ten-minute section into a forty-minute one, thinking he was editing and mixing the entirety of the record. That later became an inside joke between him and the Pink Floyd guitarist, as Youth further disclosed what it was like to collaborate with David.
The bassist’s words on Gilmour’s request and producing a Pink Floyd album:
“Phil [Manzanera] had been on it [the album] for a few years. The album was in four sections: four ten-minute tracks. They gave me the multitrack of the first part, which I thought was the whole album. They said, ‘Arrange it. Do what you like with it.’ David’s brief to me was, ‘Make it sound like us,’ because it didn’t really sound like them at the time.
It was the ’90s recordings that actually sounded a lot like The Orb in a weird way, using sequencers and loops. I got rid of all that, and I turned that ten-minute section into a 40-minute album. When I played it, David said, ‘That’s great, but that’s only the first track.’”
He continued:
“They still laugh [about that], actually. We ended up using lots of sections from that and developing those sections into other tracks. It was a recurring issue, the vocal thing. Nevertheless, two of my favorite Floyd albums, ‘Meddle’ and ‘Obscured by Clouds,’ were very experimental and free. I was thinking of that.
It was hard to get the one vocal that we did get. In the end, David was like, ‘That’s fine. That’s all we need. That’s all I want.’ We left it at that. My inclination would have been, ‘Let’s get some more vocals!’ I quite like that we didn’t, in the end, because it made it a bit more intimate in a way.”
So, David’s number one goal was to make sure that the album sounded like Pink Floyd when it also featured Roger Waters, as that’s all he needed before getting to experiment with different styles and sounds. It was apparent that Youth did a successful job, as in the end, Gilmour seemed satisfied with the final work and greenlighted the album for release.
