British rock superstars Pink Floyd have revealed November 10 as the official release date for the band’s first record since 1994. Hauntingly titled The Endless River, the album will be the fifteenth full-length recording released by the band since dropping its debut album during the Syd Barrett era, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, almost 50 years ago.
This week, the Floyd (sans Roger Waters, of course) began promoting the new album — which is rooted in material culled from the 1993 Division Bell sessions — by revealing the artwork and release date via the record’s official site. While The Endless River doesn’t include founding member Roger Waters, who hasn’t recorded an album with the band since their falling out and subsequent legal battle in the 80’s, it will include material featuring the late multi-instrumentalist Richard Wright, along with seminal members David Gilmour and Nick Mason. The band says The Endless River “is a tribute to Rick Wright, whose keyboards are at the heart of the Pink Floyd sound.” Wright died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 65.
The band will release the album in a variety of formats, including standard CD ($13), double vinyl ($40), and a deluxe 2-disc box set, available in CD/DVD ($30) and CD/Blu-ray ($32) formats. The box set includes a hardcover 24-page photo/credit booklet with previously unseen photographs from the 1993 sessions, The Endless River in CD and DVD (or Blu-ray) formats, 39 minutes of additional “audio-visual” material (6 video and 3 audio tracks), and archive video material from the recording sessions.
The DVD edition will contain both a 5.1 Surround (Dolby Digital and DTS) and a high-resolution stereo version of the record at 24-bit/48kHz, while the Blu-ray will include the album in 5.1 Surround in both DTS Master Audio and even higher-resolution PCM 24-bit/96kHz, and a stereo version 24-bit/96kHz. The album is currently available for pre-order on the album’s official site as well as through Amazon.
Of course, the Floyd’s already got a bevy of official Endless River merchandise available for pre-order on its site, ranging from T-shirt and sweatshirt bundles to the various versions of the music itself, as well as a teaser video with material from the album which, no surprise, sounds as heavily Gilmour-influenced as The Division Bell itself — at least as far as we can tell from the meager snippet offered.
Below is the official tracklisting for the double-vinyl edition of the release:
SIDE 1
Things Left Unsaid
It’s What We Do
Ebb and Flow
SIDE 2
Sum
Skins
Unsung
Anisina
SIDE 3
The Lost Art of Conversation
On Noodle Street
Night Light
Allons-y (1)
Autumn ’68
Allons-y (2)
Talkin’ Hawkin’
SIDE 4
Calling
Eyes to Pearls
Surfacing
Louder Than Words
