ROCK band Pink Floyd have released their first new material in nearly 30 years in support of the people of Ukraine.
The song, “Hey Hey, Rise Up”, marks the first original music recorded together as a collective since The Division Bell in 1994 and features the vocals of Ukrainian singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk, of rock and pop band Boombox.
Proceeds from the song will go to Ukrainian humanitarian aid.
The track features Hove resident David Gilmour and Nick Mason, as well as longtime collaborator and bassist Guy Pratt, with musician Nitin Sawhney on keyboards.
Recorded last week, the song features Khlyvnyuk’s vocals taken from a clip he posted on Instagram that shows him singing in kyiv’s Sofiyskaya Square.
He is heard singing a Ukrainian patriotic protest song, The Red Viburnum In The Meadow, and the title of the Pink Floyd track is taken from the last line of the song.
Guitarist and singer Gilmour, who has a daughter-in-law and grandchildren from Ukraine, said: ‘We, like so many others, have felt the fury and frustration of this despicable act of an independent and peaceful democratic country invaded and having its people murdered by one of the great world powers.
The musician, 76, said he first met Boombox a few years ago.
He explained: “In 2015, I played a show at Koko in London in support of the Belarus Free Theatre, whose members were imprisoned. Pussy Riot and Ukrainian group Boombox were also on the bill.
“They were supposed to do their own set, but their singer Andriy had visa issues, so the rest of the band supported me for my set – we played Wish You Were Here for Andriy that night.
“Recently I read that Andriy quit his US tour with Boombox, returned to Ukraine and joined Territorial Defense.
“Then I saw this amazing video on Instagram, where he stands in a square in Kyiv with this beautiful golden-domed church and sings in the silence of a city with no traffic or background noise because of the war.
“It was a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music.”
Gilmour spoke to Khlyvnyuk, who he said was recovering in hospital from a mortar shrapnel wound, while he was writing the song.
He said: “I played him a bit of the song over the phone line and he gave me his blessing. We both hope to do something together in person in the future.
On March 11, a message on Gilmour’s official website stated that “to stand with the world in our strong condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the works of Pink Floyd, beginning in 1987, and all David Gilmour’s solo recordings are removed from all digital music providers in Russia and Belarus starting today”.
He said of the new song, “I hope it gets wide support and publicity.
“We want to raise money for humanitarian charities and boost morale.
“We want to express our support for Ukraine, and thus show that most of the world thinks it is totally wrong for a superpower to invade the independent democratic country that Ukraine has become.”
The video for the new song was filmed by director and screenwriter Mat Whitecross.
The single’s cover features a painting of a sunflower, the national flower of Ukraine, by Cuban artist Yosan Leon.
The flower is said to refer to the woman who confronted Russian soldiers telling them to take seeds from her and carry them in their pockets so that when they died the sunflowers would grow.
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Source: www.theargus.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-04-08 16:46:08
