This is the first new original music they’ve recorded together as a band since 1994’s The Division Bell.
The track features keyboards David Gilmore and Nick Mason, longtime Pink Floyd base player Guy Pratt and Nitin Sahni, and features the extraordinary vocal performances of Ukrainian band Boombox’s Andrei Klevniewicz.
The track, recorded last Wednesday (March 30), uses Andrew’s voice taken from his Instagram post (https://www.instagram.com/p/Cae5TydPAxh/) sung in Kiev’s Sofiyaskaya Square. “The Red Viburnum in the Meadow” is a provocative Ukrainian protest song composed during World War I that was adopted around the world last month in protest of Ukraine’s aggression. The title of the Pink Floyd track is taken from the last line of the song which translates as ‘Hey hey get up and enjoy’.
Gilmore, who has a Ukrainian daughter-in-law and grandchildren, said: “We, like many, are outraged and frustrated by this heinous act of invading an independent, peaceful democracy and killing its people one by one. The world’s major power “.
Gilmore explains how he got to know Andrew and his band Boombox. “In 2015, I played a show in Coco, London, in support of the Belarus Free Theater, the members of which were imprisoned. Vogue Riot and the Ukrainian band, Boombox, were also on the bill. The rest of the members supported me for my set – we played Wish You War Here for Andre that night. I recently read that Andrew left his American tour with Boombox, returned to Ukraine and joined Territorial Defense. Then I saw this incredible video on Instagram. , Where he stands in a square in Kiev with this beautiful gold-domed church and sings in the silence of a city without traffic or background noise because of the war. It was a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music. ”
While composing music for the track, David was able to talk to Andrei from his hospital bed in Kiev where he was recovering from a mortar shell wound. “I played the song to him a little under the phone line and he gave me his blessing. We both hope to do something personally in the future. ”
Speaking about the track, Gilmore said, “I hope it gets a lot of support and publicity. We want to raise funds and raise morale for humanitarian charities We want to show our support for Ukraine and show that most people in the world think that it is wrong for a superpower to attack Ukraine, which has become an independent democracy. “
The video for “Hey Hey Rise Up” was shot by acclaimed director Matt Whitecross and was shot on the day the track was recorded. David Gilmore “We recorded tracks and videos in our barn where we streamed all of our Von Trapped Family live during the lockdown. This is the same room we did in ‘Burn James’ with Rick Wright in 2007. The set was made by Jenina Pedan one day and we sang on screen to Andrew while we were playing, so one of the four of us was a vocalist, though it wasn’t. Who was physically present with us. “
The artwork on the track features paintings by the national flower of Ukraine, the sunflower, and the Cuban artist Yosan Leon. The cover of the single is a direct reference to the woman who told Russian soldiers around the world to give sunflower seeds and carry them in their pockets so that sunflowers would grow when they died.
