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A Soniclovenoize studio album reconstruction

Side A - The Man:
1. Daybreak, Pt I
2. Work
3. Afternoon
4. Doing It!
5. Sleep
6. Nightmare
7. Daybreak, Pt II

Side B - The Journey:
8. The Beginning
9. Beset By Creatures of the Deep
10. The Narrow Way
11. The Pink Jungle
12. The Labyrinths of Auximenes
13. Behold the Temple of Light
14. The End of The Beginning

This is a reconstruction of an all-studio version of Pink Floyd's experimental performance piece The Man and The Journey, often titled The Massed Gadgets of Auximenes. This reconstruction attempts to present a version of the performance that would have taken the place of the Ummagumma album, only utilizing studio recordings and condensing the performance down to two sides of a vinyl album. Note that this reconstruction is conceptually not a part of my other two Pink Floyd reconstructions from this period, Vantage Point and Soundtrack To The Film Zabriskie Point.

Arranged as two 40-minute movements, the first set seemed to follow the events of a typical person throughout his mundane, British, post-Industrial life this segment was called The Man. The set included the members of Pink Floyd actually building a table on-stage (to represent Work) and being served tea (to represent Teatime). The concept of the second is less clearly defined and seemed to be largely instrumental and improvisational. Called The Journey, the piece seemed to center around an individualís journey for, well, who knows? Pink Floyd has never given any hints of what the prize of the conceptual journey was, and the task is apparently left to the imaginations of the listeners.

Side A of my reconstruction The Man segmentóbegins with Grantchester Meadows from Ummagumma, here titled Daybreak pt I. This represents The Man waking and beginning his day, the song concluding with him running to work. In the original live performance, this is followed by the members of Pink Floyd constructing a table to represent The Man's day at work. There is obviously no studio recording of this, so instead I substituted Sysyphus from Ummagumma as Work; the track seemed, to me, to sound like a chaotic work day at a factory! The original performances followed with Teatime; no studio recordings exist and there really is no plausible substitution for the sound of Pink Floyd being served and drinking tea, so "Teatime" is the only song excluded from my reconstruction. The studio outtake Biding My Time from Relics is Afternoon, The Man's leisure after a hard day's work. Following is Doing It!, a representation of sexual intercourse. While the band used different drum solo patterns for this track throughout the tour, I chose The Grand Vizier's Garden Party as it had the best flow in-between Afternoon and Sleep. An edit of Quicksilver from More is used as Sleep, and Cymbaline is used to represent the nightmare The Man has during his sleep. The night turns to day and the never-ending cycle continues as The Man wakes in Daybreak, pt II, an instrumental reprise of Grantchester Meadows.

Side B The Journey segment is conceptually ambiguous. Unlike the previous suite, The Journey concept is not self-evident, and the band has given absolutely no clues to the meaning. Pretensions aside, we can only gather the meaning of this piece through the song titles and the mental images the music invoke, which was probably their intent. Aptly beginning with The Beginning, Green is the Colour from More is used. Following this is Beset by Creatures of the Deep, which was usually performed as Careful With That Axe Eugene. Instead I used Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up from Zabriskie Point as the song is essentially Eugene played in a different key, Em instead of Dm; because of this, it follows Green is the Color (in G) more harmonically as well as matching the following The Narrow Path (which begins with an Em drone) and staying within the same chordal family. The Narrow Path from Ummagumma seems to be the start of our protagonistís journey into the next track, The Pink Jungle. Here, Pink Floyd alternated between a jam of the intro to Pow R Toc H or a jam originating from the brief time both Syd Barrett and David Gilmour were in the band, entitled Nick's Boogie. Since we know Nickís Boogie was eventually incorporated into the second movement of Saucerful of Secrets (retiled Syncopated Pandemonium), I will utilize an August 9th, 1969 Hilversum 3 radio broadcast recording of that segment, taken from the remastered bootleg Celestial Instruments. Our protagonist seems to exit the Jungle and enter The Labyrinths of Auximenes, performed as the improvised jam sections of Interstellar Overdrive, again taken from the Celestial Instruments bootleg. Upon reaching the center of the maze (either literally or metaphorically, take your pick), he can only Behold The Temple of Light, which was a unique improvisational jam of the intro to The Narrow Way. There are no studio recordings of this piece, so a loop was created from the song's intro on Ummagumma. Harnessing his prize, the protagonist reaches The End of The Beginning, here as the fourth segment of Saucerful of Secrets, Celestial Voices, taken from the Celestial Instruments bootleg.

Sources used:
Celestial Instruments (2007 bootleg, MOB remaster)
Relics (1996 remaster)
Soundtrack to the Film More (1987 remaster)
Ummagumma (1994 remaster)
Zabriskie Point (1997 remaster)