Of his first studio solo release for nine years, and his fourth since Pink Floyd split, David Gilmour says: “The album’s called Luck And Strange. It’s the ‘luck’ of the very strange moment that me, and baby boomers in general, have lived through,” he says. “To have had such a fortunate moment, so many positive ideas that one thought were moving us forward.”
For guitar lovers, the album is a showcase for fabulous instruments of all stripes, from Fender Stratocasters (of course) to vintage Gibson Les Paul Goldtop and ES-335 dot neck, Gretsch Duo-Jet, classic Martin acoustics and ukuleles, and of course David’s ancient Rickenbacker lap steel ‘frying pan’ that features throughout.
Produced by Mercury Music Prize winner Charlie Andrew, best known for his work with Alt-J, Gilmour admires Andrew’s lack of reverence for both him and his musical history. “He’s quite bossy and doesn’t have any great preconceptions about what I do, or what Pink Floyd has done,” laughs David. “He just tells us what he wants us to get on with, and we get on with it. The result is extremely pleasing to me.”
“David’s been very receptive to my bossiness,” says Charlie.
With few budget restraints, the album brims with instruments, players and voices, including orchestrations by Will Gardner, and boasting the choir of Ely Cathedral (the ‘ship of the fens’ featured on the cover of Floyd’s Division Bell album). The orchestrations are “break-your-heart beautiful,” says David’s wife and lyricist Polly Samson. Gilmour agrees: “He’s a real genius.”
David Gilmour is one of those musicians held in almost universal reverence by players and music fans alike. “David Gilmour is an outstanding Strat player,” says arch-melodist
Hank Marvin. “He always gets a variety of great tones, uses finger vibrato and the bar, has super feel, creates beautifully constructed bluesy solos and is not afraid to let a phrase really
speak. Wonderful!”
“I’ve changed my whole thinking about guitar,” says Toto’s Steve Lukather. “I’d rather be more like David Gilmour than anybody else.”
Gilmour joined Pink Floyd as the group’s founder and guitarist Syd Barrett drifted from the band due to mental health issues. Since then, he has enjoyed a stellar career and his compositions, vocals, and huge soaring solos have featured on several of the world’s greatest-selling albums. The Dark Side Of The Moon became the fourth best-selling album of all time.
Wish You Were Here is another monster, full of epic tracks including Shine On You Crazy Diamond, while The Wall features the Gilmour and Roger Waters composition Comfortably Numb – in 2022 Total Guitar readers voted it the third-best solo of all time, after Van Halen’s Eruption and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
When Pink Floyd finally imploded, Gilmour released solo albums like the eponymous debut, plus On An Island and Rattle That Lock, where he enlisted the help of fellow legends David Crosby, Graham Nash, Phil Manzanera, Jools Holland, Roger Eno, Floyd’s Rick Wright and others, to create finely-sculpted and highly-regarded works.
Gilmour’s playing is ever-tasteful, always in service of the song, and offers a range of techniques including string bends (with the infamous compound bend) and vibrato, both finger and whammy style. His compositions are thoughtful and musical, with arrangements that blend rock, pop, prog and blues to create dreamy musical soundscapes.
All of this is in evidence on Luck And Strange. But there’s a sense within the Gilmour camp that this one is something special. “I started off in a pop group,” says Gilmour, “and I found myself eventually leading that group, never a position I wanted. Same with being a solo artist – not something I really asked for.
“This album feels much closer to that than I’ve had all these years, with a group of people very collaborative, very positive, and pushing in everything they can to what we’re doing. It’s the best album I’ve made since The Dark Side Of The Moon in 1973.”
1. Black Cat
At just a minute and a half, the album’s instrumental opener features just Gilmour on guitar and piano, plus ambient genius Roger Eno on synthesiser. Black Cat features a replacement for the infamous black Strat that David sold at auction in 2019 for over £3,000,000.
A typically simple piece in C minor, the playing could be no-one else. It’s beautiful, tasteful and although mainly minor pentatonic-based, is laced with colour tones, glorious bends, and subtle vibrato, not to mention that echo-laden ‘fingerprint’ Stratocaster tone.
2. Luck and Strange
“Luck And Strange comes from a jam that we did in 2007 while Rick Wright was still alive,” Gilmour explains. “I wrote choruses and bridges for it and Polly wrote these great words. From the first second you hear Rick playing his electric piano, you just know there’s something about it that no one else could do.”
Introduced by Gilmour’s black Gretsch Duo Jet, it’s as close as he ever gets to a foot-tapper. The changes are very Floyd-y, too, especially the Em-C in the bridge, followed by the very Dark Side-ish G-Gdim5-C move. Packed with gorgeous bluesy fills and another monster solo, Gilmour’s vocals are relaxed and confident. A great track that harks back across the decades, both lyrically and musically.
3. The Piper’s Call
The album’s first single was written on David’s old Martin ukulele and begins with uke and acoustic guitar licks. “It’s a song about the Faustian pact – that deal with the devil,” David explains. “It could be with using up the planet,” says Polly Samson, “it could be with hedonism.”
The powerful fills and huge solo are played on possibly the same 1955 Les Paul Goldtop used on Another Brick In The Wall Part 2. Lyrically the song is almost Roger Waters-like in its social commentary: the dismissal of materialism (“ the spoils of fame”) and treachery (“but you reap what you sow, as I found long ago”).
But is the ‘piper’ The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (Floyd’s debut album on which Gilmour didn’t play but which he performed live after Barrett left the band), or perhaps the Pied Piper of Hamelin? Whatever its meaning, the track’s simple beauty belies the insidious darkness behind it.
4. Between Two Points
“Polly always asks who my favourite drummer is,” states David. “Steve Gadd of course!” This song from The Montgolfier Brothers, a ’90s dream-pop duo featuring Mark Tranmer and Roger Quigley, had been on Gilmour’s personal playlist for years.
“I made a backing track and realised the lyrics weren’t naturally a thing I’d sing,” expresses David. So he asked daughter Romany to provide vocals. Gilmour says the guitar solo is a rare moment.
“I was so into that moment, it was like being stoned but I wasn’t – not separated from the guitar and what I was playing at that particular moment, which is rare. It was joyful.”
5. A Single Spark
Featuring Romany, Daniel and David Gilmour on ethereal backing vocals, with the man himself singing raspy lead, this cool track’s Cmaj7-Dm7-G7 verse is propelled by Adam Betts’ lovely loping drums. As for the solo, it’s about as melodic as a player can get, following the chords and targeting notes like major 7th, 9th and 5th so musically.
6. Vita Brevis
If Black Cat represents the tasty pre-dinner nibbles then this 46-second snippet is the sorbet break in our 9-course feast. Featuring daughter Romany on delicate harp, and David playing swooping slide guitar it’s a pretty and easy-to-digest respite from the weightier pieces here.
Played as an entire album rather than cherry-picking tracks, Vita Brevis (life is short) works perfectly in the context of the overall offering.
7. Dark And Velvet Nights
Featuring A-list session drummer Steve Gadd and long-time collaborator on bass, Guy Pratt, Dark And Velvet Nights is one of the album’s highlights.
“The music sprang out of me one day,” exclaims David, although the lyrics were pure happenstance. “Polly had given me a poem for our wedding anniversary and it happened to be sitting on my desk next to me. I just picked up the paper and sang these words.”
Gilmour played it to Polly, she loved it, added some further lyrics… “and there it was. Serendipitous, really.” With possibly the most soaring, anthemic solo on the album - played on David’s recently acquired dot-neck Gibson ES-335 (“I don’t know why I didn’t discover one of these a long time ago”) it’s a joyous yet melancholy piece.
8. Sings
Again, there’s no mistaking the writing and playing here. Featuring David’s two-year-old son Joe imploring him to “sing daddy, sing”, the track’s chorus was originally written 25 years ago.
Perhaps more of a grower than an instantaneous album ‘hit’ it does finish with a tasty, dare we say Roger Waters-ish, repeating bass guitar run (possibly from Gilmour himself).
9. Scattered
Lyrically credited to Samson, and both David and son Charlie Gilmour, Scattered is a classic E minor ballad, but with a few surprises. It starts in atmospheric style with a synth-borne descending Em-D-Cmaj7 sequence that builds to a darkly diminished piano breakdown from Eno and Rob Gentry.
Light relief comes with Gilmour’s acoustic guitar solo. But it’s the calm before the storm as his distortion-laden guitar takes off like a rocket to the pentatonic Strat-osphere. If there’s a Comfortably Numb moment on the album, then this is it!
10. Yes, I Have Ghosts
Another short and sparsely instrumented number, …Ghosts boasts only Gilmour on acoustic guitar, with daughter Romany on backing vocals, string programming and harp.
The instruments and vocals weave elegantly around one another, before David’s acoustic outro solo dances around Polly’s programmed violin before the song fades out. Somewhat Elizabethan in nature it’s an interesting left turn from the album’s more symphonic tracks.
11. Luck And Strange (original Barn Jam)
A spontaneous jam in Gilmour’s freezing barn with the late Rick Wright playing unmistakable electric piano (with Guy Pratt on bass and Steve DiStanislao on drums), there are nevertheless epic Gilmour moments here. He’s as cool (sic) as ever, never drops a note, and this could well be the original black Strat.
