Pink Floyd - Forever And Ever (2015)

In 2015 Magna Qualitas Records presented us with 'Forever and Ever', a mashup of 'The Division Bell' and 'The Endless River' albums, designed to make 'The Division Bell' less radio-friendly and 'The Endless River' less avant garde. It was intended as a true final Pink Floyd record, an alternate reality version of what should have been released in 1994. On first listening to 'The Endless River' they were disappointed by the lack of any sort of actual songs on the record - other that 'Louder Than Words' there was nothing with a traditional song structure to it or lyrics on the record. They heard many pieces of things they'd heard before, either on bootlegs or on the 'Colours Of Infinity' soundtrack, even a piece of the soundscape used as an opening act on the 1994 tour and later released on the 'P*U*L*SE' cassettes, and being mostly recorded in tandem with 'The Division Bell', it also contained a lot of similar themes or reprises of what's on that album. Considering 'The Division Bell' as one of Pink Floyd's better efforts, the first record to sound like a band (rather than a solo album) since 'Animals', they still felt it was a bit heavy on the pop songs, and while both albums are flawed, they decided that if the two were combined to form a single long album they might balance each other. So that's what they did. Influenced by the way 'The Endless River' is broken into four album sides, this is made up of six suites. Each is separate from the others with the pieces making it up all connected, and I've included a full review of the album from Rob's Wall Of Music in the file, citing sources of all the recordings. There is another similar album from 2014 combining these two records, entitled 'Some Of Our Parts', which was the first of these that I heard, and although the basic idea is the same, it uses different recordings in a different order, so is also worth searching out.

Track listing

Suite 1
01 Cluster One
02 Allons-y 1
03 Spring '69
04 Allons-y 2
05 What Do You Want From Me?
06 Unsung
07 Anisina
08 Poles Apart

Suite 2
09 The Lost Art Of Conversation
10 On Noodle Street
11 Night Light
12 Keep Talking
13 Talkin' Hawkin'
14 Lost For Words

Suite 3
15 Calling
16 Eyes To Pearls
17 Wearing The Inside Out

Suite 4
18 Take It Back
19 Sum
20 Skins
21 Coming Back To Life

Suite 5
22 First In Space
23 Carnival Relations
24 Louder Than Words
25 Things Left Unsaid
26 Ebb & Flow
27 A Great Day For Freedom

Suite 6
28 TBS9
29 It's What We Do
30 Marooned
31 High Hopes