Ummagumma is that turning point between Syd's Pink Floyd
(Piper and Saucerful) and Meddle. In a band like Yes, there is that iteration,
from The Yes Album through Going For the One, that stands as the group's canon,
with none of the rest of it really Yes. For Pink Floyd, though, there were two
ensembles that co-exist: the Syd Barret years and beyond.
Even with David Gilmour, the band that began as The Pink
Floyd Sound had no real direction after Syd was whisked away to Wonderland.
They'd made film scores for More and Zabriskie Point, which they shared equally
with odd bedfellows The Grateful Dead, though unlike The Dead, the soundtracks showed
Pink Floyd floundering. Nonetheless, the PF track “The Violent Sequence,” would
later become “Us and Them” on Dark Side of the Moon.
Ummagumma was released during that period as the first Harvest
label LP. The album falls neatly into two parts: record one, a live recording
(The Mother Club, Birmingham, 1969), and record two, a studio effort with half
an album-side devoted to each of the four members. The live tracks are reworkings
of the core material of the first two LPs in a bluesy style, interspersed with spaced-out
movements that suggest what was coming next. "Set the Controls for the
Heart of the Sun" and "A Saucerful of Secrets" are the
definitive versions of these early year songs. And, of course, there's the
haunting "Careful With That Axe, Eugene."
The solo efforts are Richard Wright's "Sysyphus "
(sic), a puzzling keyboard workout charting the Sisyphus myth replete with
falling rock in an avant-garde tone poem.
Roger Waters' "Several Species of Small Furry Animals
Gathering Together and Grooving With a Pict" is an experimental spaced-out
drug experience, I guess; at any rate, it's just what the title promises and my
fave on the LP. "Grantchester Meadows" is little more than Waters sitting
in a wheat field strumming an acoustic guitar, getting high. Fair enough.

The cover art by Hipgnosis is the last depiction of the band
on an LP cover and is done utilizing the Droste Effect, kind of like when a
mirror is reflected in a mirror, an illusion named for the Droste cocoa can.
The other famous branding that utilizes the Droste Effect is Land O Lakes. What's different on Ummagumma is
that the band members change positions with each iteration. The original cover
is depicted below with the Broadway musical soundtrack, Gigi, leaning against
the wall. This was airbrushed out for copyright infringement on later versions
of the LP, only to return with the reissue.
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