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Our copy of the new Dream Academy compilation arrived today. Its liner notes reveal some more details about David Gilmour‘s participation in the previously-unreleased tracks included on the album.

Band frontman Nick Laird-Clowes writes of “Living in a War”: “Another song taken from the third album sessions. It had started life with a simple acoustic/string synthesizer arrangement, but had developed in the studio under the influence of the technology and sounds of the time, including David Gilmour’s multi-octave guitar sound (circa 1989). It was then thought to be ‘too eighties’ and subsequently put on the shelf but emerges now as a pure sound snapshot of its time.”

For the other track featuring Gilmour, “The Chosen Few,” Laird-Clowes writes: “Recorded in sessions for the last album. One afternoon in a break from his ‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason’ Tour, David came down to the Strongroom where we were recording with Anthony Moore and added some electric and slide guitar to the track. With Pete Thomas playing the drums, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin augmenting our sound with the Hammond organ, there was very much a ‘live band’ feel to this recording.”

Careful observers will recognize some of those names as those of other Floyd contributors. (Laird-Clowes co-wrote a couple tracks on Floyd’s “The Division Bell” [1994].)

“Living in a War” and “The Chosen Few” are pretty much as one might expect, and as described above. Unfortunately, for Floyd fans, Gilmour’s contributions rarely rise to the top of the mix in either track.