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His solo career is on an island no longer. Today, David Gilmour announced his new album Luck and Strange will be released on September 6, 2024 on Sony Music in multiple formats, including (of course) vinyl. The single LP will be available in both black vinyl (SRP: $35.99) and translucent sea blue vinyl ($36.99) options. Both versions are available for pre-order via the Music Direct links here for the color vinyl, and here for the standard black vinyl. A deluxe LP box set will be announced, according to Gilmour’s team, “in the coming weeks.”

While we await direct confirmation from Gilmour’s team regarding the LP’s source material, whether it’s standard weight or 180g vinyl, who cut the lacquers, and where the vinyl is being pressed, we can sit back and enjoy the following teaser YouTube clips — the first one directly below, and another one after the following paragraph — ahead of the premiere of the album’s lead track, “The Piper’s Call.”

What we do currently know about Luck and Strange is the following. Luck and Strange was recorded over five months in Brighton and London, and it is Gilmour’s first full album of new material in nine years, following September 2015’s Rattle That Lock LP on Columbia. The new album features nine songs in total — eight new tracks, plus a reworking of The Montgolfier Brothers’ “Between Two Points,” a song that initially appeared on that British indie duo’s 1999 debut on Vespertine, Seventeen Stars.

In addition to Gilmour on vocals and guitar (and possibly some other instruments that are not yet identified), other musicians contributing to Luck and Strange include Guy Pratt and Tom Herbert on bass; Adam Betts, Steve Gadd, and Steve DiStanislao on drums; Rob Gentry and Roger Eno on keyboards; and string and choral arrangements by Will Gardner. The title track also features the late, great Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright, whose part was recorded in 2007 at a jam in a barn at Gilmour’s house.

Some contributions to Luck and Strange emerged from the live streams that Gilmour and his family performed to a global audience during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 under the typically clever “Von Trapped” catch-all header. Romany Gilmour sings, plays the harp, and appears on lead vocals on “Between Two Points,” while Gabriel Gilmour also sings backing vocals.

Luck and Strange was produced by Gilmour (seen above in a new photo by Anton Corbijn) and Charlie Andrew (ALT-J, Marika Hackman). Of this new working relationship, Gilmour said, in a press statement, “We invited Charlie to the house, so he came and listened to some demos, and said things like, ‘Well, why does there have to be a guitar solo there?’ and ‘Do they all fade out? Can’t some of them just end?’ He has a wonderful lack of knowledge or respect for this past of mine. He’s very direct and not in any way overawed, and I love that. That is just so good for me because the last thing you want is people just deferring to you.” (Hear, hear.)

Luck and Strange was engineered by Matt Glasbey, Charlie Andrew, David Gilmour, and Damon Iddins. It was mixed by David Gilmour, Charlie Andrew, and Matt Glasbey, with additional engineering by Andy Jackson and Luie Stylianou.

The majority of the lyrics for Luck and Strange were composed by Polly Samson, Gilmour’s co-writer and collaborator for the past 30 years. Samson said of the lyrical themes covered on Luck and Strange, “It’s written from the point of view of being older; mortality is the constant.” Gilmour concurred, “We spent a load of time during and after lockdown talking about and thinking about those kind of things.” Samson also found the experience of working with Charlie Andrew liberating. “He wants to know what the songs are about. He wants everyone who’s playing on them to have the ideas that are in the lyric informing their playing,” she observed. “I have particularly loved it for that reason.”

The album’s cover image, photographed and designed by Anton Corbijn, is inspired by a lyric written by Charlie Gilmour for the album’s final song on Side 2, “Scattered.” Of working with his family on Luck and Strange, David noted, “Polly and I have been writing together for over 30 years, and the ‘Von Trapped’ live streams showed the great blend of Romany’s voice and harp-playing — and that led us into a feeling of discarding some of the past that I’d felt bound to and that I could throw those rules out and do whatever I felt like doing, and that has been such a joy.”

Speaking — or rather, typing — as a lifelong fan of Gilmour’s work in both Pink Floyd and what he’s done over the years as a solo artist, I can totally get behind that kind of creative impetus as combined with family involvement. Naturally, we will review the Luck and Strange LP here on AP — and the vinyl box set as well, for that matter — when the time comes.

DAVID GILMOUR
LUCK AND STRANGE
1LP (Sony Music)

Side 1
1. Black Cat
2. Luck And Strange
3. The Piper’s Call
4. A Single Spark
5. Vita Brevis
6. Between Two Points (With Romany Gilmour)

Side 2
1. Dark And Velvet Nights
2. Sings
3. Scattered