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Noises, Clusters... Explosions: Pink Floyd and la musique concrète
Abstract
This article deals with the various ways of realising sound effects, known as ‘concrete music’, specifically in the works of Pink Floyd, one of the most famous and respected British progressive rock groups, which has been releasing albums since 1967 and is responsible for the development of experimental sampling techniques used throughout their work and which have been influential across a spectrum of genres. “Concrete” sounds in this oeuvre enter into various relationships via the use of electronically prepared sounds alongside sounds realised in a more traditional manner. In addition, those sounds are subjected to a number of studio processes and manipulations (free editing, acceleration, vibration, etc.). The presence of such effects is often systemic and large-scale, determining not only the face and charisma of the individual works, but also their semantics and form on compositions such as The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) or The Wall (1979). This outline looks at some selected issues, such as: the relationship of concrete music with electronics (in several arrangements and forms), concrete music as one of the ways of creating situations and settings, and its presence in the structure of finished albums. Elements of concrete music in the output of the Cambridge quartet are not only a showy illustrative ornament, although such functions are performed by this gimmick in the structure of some works. First of all, they assign to the sounds of the natural world non-trivial functions identical to those assigned to traditional composition. At the same time, they are a quintessential element of Pink Floyd’s style, ipso facto developing a new ‘tradition’.
Keywords:
concrete music, Pink Floyd, electronic music, concept album, editing soundDetails
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
