THE BIG SPLIFF (1995)
Nick Mason, in his book, has revealed that Pink Floyd could have released an album made up of the various jams and electronic effects from the recording sessions for « The Division Bell »’ The composition process, which began in 1993, involved the three members jamming for weeks on end to write as much music as possible. According to David, the band ended up with around sixty unfinished tracks. The world tour prevented them from working on the sequel straight away.
Andy Jackson (Producer):
«It was just a mash-up of some of the psychedelic noodling from the Division Bell jams (…) It could have happened if there had been more time. But there was a time limit, a tour was booked. And work expands to fill the available time. We just got the album done. It never got thought about again, really »
«Coming back to Life », Uncut, October 2014.
Gilmour eventually lost interest in the project, although he did include a few extracts in the soundtrack to the documentary « Color of Infinity ». As for Wright, he reworked some of his compositions for his solo album "Broken China", including the future track BreakThrough, which the guitarist particularly liked and which he later regretted not having been able to include on the Floyd's last album (he added it to his solo tours with the pianist). It should be noted that some of these tracks were released some time ago on the bootleg '1987-94 - Late Floyd Outtakes'. Contrary to what the band's fans believed for a while, this tape does not form the core of the band's final album, « The Endless River » released in 2014.
Nick Mason:
«I think that at this point, there’s not a big connection anymore, [The producers] took a huge bunch of stuff and meted out what should be kept. To me, 'The Big Spliff' was an early pass at this recording. Whatever is there now, the initial distillation was done from all those takes that were lurking around»
