Smuggled Sounds: David Gilmour - Shining crazy diamond

Gilmour on a Island A dozen years in the making, On An Island is the new David Gilmour album that has brought him back into music’s limelight. It was his young family that drew him away but working with Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright and Roxy Music guitarist Phil Mazanera, he’s put together a new touring band and for this session, Gilmour even dusted down a couple of Pink Floyd classics.
That trademark Gilmour guitar sound is put to good use on the new songs that have a broad and sometime delicate sound. Textures are layered upon one another for title track On An Island, while High Hopes and Comfortably Numb sound timeless and epic.
The band and the man himself hold nothing back and the clarity and balance of sound are excellent, allowing the lyrical stories to come through. As Gilmour explains, the subject of mortality is a natural one: “When you hit 60, as I have, it’s something that your mind does tend to dwell on. I’ve lost some close friends and in On An Island, we write about how they live on in our memories and dreams.”
And what of Pink Floyd? Gilmour is quite clear that Live 8 was the band’s final resting place. Gilmour002 “I had a great time. It was a terrific thing to be part of, to feel that one’s contributing a tiny little bit towards the welfare of this planet, and – on a more personal level – to get over some of the difficulties that [Pink Floyd] have had over the past 20 years.”
David Gilmour is in a pretty happy place personally and professionally. His activities are driven by the desire to make music and not money. “I’ve always been into music making for the music making. When one is young and ambitious, there’s wealth and fame and all the other ambitions that go along with it. But we achieved that sort of goal in 1973, and there was a little moment [of doubt] there, wondering what it was all about. But I got over that fairly quickly, and it just served to convince me that my motivation is pure.”