Legendary progressive and psychedelic-fueled rock band Pink Floyd has been no stranger to dedicating music to fallen band members. In fact, most of their most beloved and well-remembered music was written out of the grief suffered when former front man Syd Barrett had a nervous breakdown and fell into drugs and psychosis. Their last album was released in 1994, called The Division Bell, and now the remaining band members, guitarist/singer David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, have taken unreleased recordings from those sessions and produced a new album, The Endless River, which is a tribute to late keyboardist, songwriter, and singer Rick Wright.

The album has been culled from over 20 hours of recordings Gilmour and Mason listened to from the Division Bell sessions, which included Wright’s final new contributions to the band before his death in 2008. The group has been going in different capacities since 1963, with Barrett leaving in 1968, bassist and principle songwriter Roger Waters leaving in 1985, and the group’s eventual disbanding in 1994 following Division Bell. The remaining members have toured, on and off, together and separately, over the years, the last time in 2011.

The Endless River will be mainly an instrumental album, though there is one song (“Louder Than Words”) with lyrics, written by Gilmour’s wife, Polly Samson.

Gilmour released this statement about the project: “The Endless River has as its starting point the music that came from the 1993 Division Bell sessions. We listened to over 20 hours of the three of us playing together and selected the music we wanted to work on for the new album. Over the last year we’ve added new parts, re-recorded others and generally harnessed studio technology to make a 21st century Pink Floyd album. With Rick gone, and with him the chance of ever doing it again, it feels right that these revisited and reworked tracks should be made available as part of our repertoire.”

Mason followed up with his own statement: “The Endless River is a tribute to Rick. I think this record is a good way of recognizing a lot of what he does and how his playing was at the heart of the Pink Floyd sound. Listening back to the sessions, it really brought home to me what a special player he was.”

HT: Rolling Stone

The new album is available for pre-order now, in various different formats, and will be released on November 10th, 2014.

They have also released a full track listing (which has some very interesting titles) and a 30 second sample is available on their website.

Side 1:
01 Things Left Unsaid
02 It’s What We Do
03 Ebb And Flow

Side 2:
04 Sum
05 Skins
06 Unsung
07 Anisina

Side 3:
08 The Lost Art of Conversation
09 On Noodle Street
10 Night Light
11 Allons-y (1)
12 Autumn’68
13 Allons-y (2)
14 Talkin’ Hawkin’

Side 4:
15 Calling
16 Eyes To Pearls
17 Surfacing
18 Louder Than Words

What side of the moon (or wall) do you fall on about this? Are you ready for more dreamy, guitar squealing rock music or is Pink Floyd only worth it for two albums in the ’70s? Do you think this album will complement The Wizard Of Oz…intentionally!? Let us know below! We’re pretty excited ourselves. Plus, two tracks called “Allons-y”!?! Are we looking at some rock god Doctor Who fans here?