Over the mountain watching the watcher, breaking the darkness (Pink Floyd)

It's been a Pink Floyd-a-thon of late thanks to the Rough Guide book I bought at Eye Spy Bookshop in the City Center Mall. Yes - Qatar employs American spellings!

That means an obsessive trawl through the Pink's back catalogue on my p-pod (P for Purdy, not pink yunnerstan).

Ummagumma is a weird one. Fellow non-stoner friend from Nelson is correct when he points out that sixties' university students (he's older than me) opined that it was better heard under a narcotic haze. Having never been in such a state I wouldn't know (I was a square seventies' university student - the closest I got to being stoned was waiting for a rock concert to start at the Old Maid Theatre and drowning in a sea of dope smells).

So when I listen to Careful with that axe, Eugene (what a wonderful title part 1) and Set the controls for the heart of the sun (what a wonderful title part 2) I respond to what is conjured via my full faculties and they are amazingly evocative songs. I have a good imagination.

The cover to Ummagumma has always intrigued me (front and back).


Here's wikipedia on the cover -

The cover shows the members of the band, with a picture hanging on the wall showing the same scene, except the band members have switched positions. The
picture on the wall also includes the picture on the wall, creating a recursion effect, with each recursion showing band members exchanging positions. After 4
variations of the scene, the final picture within picture is the cover of the previous Pink Floyd album, A Saucerful of Secrets. The latter,however, is absent from the CD release; instead, the recursion effect is seemingly ad infinitum.

The back cover has a picture of the band's roadies with the band's equipment laid out on an airport runway.

It's this recursive aspect to the cover that I fell in love with. Here are some others for your enjoyment: