Ummagumma
| Pink Floyd
Ummagumma
Ummagumma is the fourth album by the English rock band Pink Floyd. It is a double album and was released on 7 November 1969 by Harvest Records. The first disc consists of live recordings from concerts at Mothers Club in Birmingham and the College of Commerce in Manchester that contained part of their normal set list of the time, while the second contains solo compositions by each member of the band recorded at Abbey Road Studios. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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All Music
Unlike almost anything else the group ever did.
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Paste Magazine
Looking for transcendence in synthobirds and what sounds like monkeys cavorting in a Steinway showroom, they mistake aimlessness for import, in the process creating a towering monument to rock self-indulgence.
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Sputnik Music
Ambitious, but not necessarily momentous.
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Head Heritage
This is awesome live Floyd, it bloody rocks, it bends every synapse in your brain with sheer psychedelic force, and leaves you wanting to rush out to the nearest record fair for as many bootlegs as possible from this era.
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Medium
No matter how strong the live part is and no matter the amount of redeeming qualities the studio attempts might have, the album still suffers from being too long.
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Psychedelic Sight
Hear in it what you will, but English psychedelic music peaked here, courtesy of the sonic beast that was Pink Floyd circa 1969.
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Rolling Stone
Ummagumma is Pink Floyd at the peak of their ambitious weirdness.
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Best Shot Whiskey Reviews
In summary, this is not Pink Floyd for the casual listener. It certainly is not the place to start your Pink Floyd collection. But if you are a true fan there is enough to discover on this Studio Album.
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Beats Per Minute
Often times I find myself daydreaming about where Pink Floyd might have gone if they had chosen improvisation over orchestration . . . Then I remind myself that new found sense of purpose resulted in The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall and it’s easy not to feel so bad about it. We’ll always have Ummagumma to return to.
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Consequence of Sound
Ummagumma may not be the worst record of Floyd’s diverse early days, but it’s likely their most scattershot.
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The Pink Floyd Fandom
Barrett was the main advocate of improvisation in the band, often sinking into atonal depths to create a unique atmosphere which he never really managed to reproduce on either of his solo albums, and it is nice to hear the Floyd doing something similar for what is, arguably, the very last time.
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Telegraph
Avant-garde experimental double album mixing live tracks and space rock jams, beauty and absurdity in equal measure.
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Adrian's Album Reviews
Even with the live disc being pretty decent, even great in places - the studio material here is so wretched it pulls the album down significantly, although the live disc still just about keeps this 'Ummagumma' project's head above water.
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John McFerrin Music Reviews
This is, quite simply, a fabulous album, and there are scant few others I'm aware of that manage to be this weird and still sound like, well, music.
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The Quietus
They were always looking for transcendence, and this was them at their height.
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Mark Prindle
A peculiar hodgepodge of musical bits and pieces.
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Aphoristic Album Reviews
With such an indulgent studio disc, Ummagumma is recommended only for dedicated Pink Floyd fans.
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Progressive Rock Music Album Reviews
In subsequent years, I, like many others have spent many enjoyable hours replaying the live album, while the studio album is brought out for the occasional - 'can it really be that dreadful: surely there must be something I'm missing, it's Pink Floyd for goodness sake!!' - type airing.
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Don Ignacio's Album Reviews
This is one of the most entertaining and effective avant-garde albums out there.
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The Fat Angel Sings
Of anyone in the band, David Gilmour had the most trepidation about creating an individual experimental piece for the studio disc of Ummagumma. And he ended up with the best thing on the project.
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Gullbuy Music Review
All of their appreciated artistic expression opened doors for other bands to use the mounting drug culture and new found openness to do their own psychedelic soundscapes.
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