Pink Floyd Discuss ‘The Endless River’ in New Video

Surviving Pink Floyd members David Gilmour and Nick Mason open up about the creative process behind the band's new album, 'The Endless River,' in an interview segment recently posted to their YouTube channel. (The album comes out on Nov. 10.)

"'The Endless River' is a continuous flow of music that builds gradually over four separate pieces over the 55-odd minutes," Gilmour explains as the clip begins, but it isn't just the music within the album that connects -- it also reaches back to their previous effort, 1994's 'The Division Bell,' and not only because the 'Endless River' music started from sessions that took place while Floyd worked on that LP. "There's a sort of continuum from the 'Division Bell' album to this," he points out. "The last phrase but one on 'The Division Bell' is "the endless river, forever and ever" -- the end of the song 'High Hopes.'"

The result, says Gilmour, is a record that highlights the sound of himself, Mason and keyboard player Rick Wright "playing together in a way that we had done way, way in the past, but had kind of forgotten that we did. It was instantly familiar."

Wright's 2008 passing can't help but lend a poignancy to his heavy presence on the album, something not lost on Mason and Gilmour. "I think Rick would be thrilled, actually. I think this record is rather a good way of recognizing a lot of what he does," muses Mason. "The most significant element was really actually hearing what Rick did, because having lost Rick, it really brought home what a special player he was."

"It's very evocative and emotional in a lot of moments," concurs Gilmour. "Certainly, listening to all of this stuff, it made me regret his passing all over again. This is the last chance anyone will get to hear him just playing along with us in that way that he did."

And as Gilmour has stressed elsewhere, this is being presented as Pink Floyd's farewell. "I think we have successfully commandeered the best of what there is," he offers in closing. "I suspect this is it."

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