Archive for November 18, 2014

Pink Floyd releases music video on Aral Sea problems

Pink Floyd’s new album, The Endless River, is almost completely instrumental: Lyrics don’t appear until the closing track “Louder Than Words,” a reflection on the group’s 50-year saga written by David Gilmour’s wife Polly Sampson. “Her words really spoke to something about the band,” says Gilmour, “certainly when it came to Rick [Wright] and myself. We speak better with our musical instruments.”

Pink-Floyd3Director Po Powell shot much of the footage for the song’s video near the remains of the Aral Sea on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. He got the idea when he saw an image of rusting ships lying in the sand where the river used to flow. “A surreal image if ever I saw one,” says Powell, “and a shocking example of human mismanagement and one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters. . . The river has shrunk to 10 percent of its original size, destroying the fishing industry and whole townships.” Read more