Pink Floyd have announced they will release a new San Tropez Orange Marble vinyl edition of their landmark 1971 album Meddle, for this year’s National Album Day, through Sony Music on October 17.
At the same time, a newly restored high-resolution version of the iconic Echoes sequence, the final chapter from cult-classic 1973 Australian surf film Crystal Voyager, will be available via Pink Floyd’s YouTube channel on 17th October.
Crystal Voyager was a 1973 documentary directed by David Elfick was written and narrated by surfer, photographer and filmmaker George Greenough. The sequence in question, the film's closing scene, was shot by Greenough with his innovative new technique for filming in the water, which involved a self-developed and built seventeen-pound camera rig, which allowed the audience to see footage from inside a wave for the first time ever.
In searching for an appropriate soundtrack for this groundbreaking footage, Greenough stumbled across a record his mother had bought for him. Upon hearing the closing track, Echoes, he noted its perfectly matched 23-minute running time.
Greenough sought the band's permission, despite not having enough money to pay them for use of the song. An agreement was proposed, whereby Elfick and Greenough could use the song if Floyd could use the footage as background visuals for their live shows. With both parties happy, the deal was made, and Echoes became an iconic accompaniment to a legendary film.
"I'd never heard Echoes before until my mother got it for me," Greenhough says. "When I heard it, I went, ‘my god, that's gotta be the soundtrack!’ We asked about using it, and we made a deal with Pink Floyd, and everybody had smiles on their faces. That was over 50 years ago, and the footage and the audio still looks and sounds groundbreaking today. I'm just so stoked that this whole thing is coming about; it’s amazing to work with Pink Floyd again. The big sound and the big picture; you can't beat it!"
Pre-order San Tropez Orange Marble Vinyl version of Meddle.
