When PlNK FLOYD perfected Echoes in late 1971, it was atransformational epiphany-an emerging Vision ofasuccessful futureforthe band. Fiftyyears andsomeserious woodshedding later, NICK MASON’Si SAUCERFUL OFSECRETS are taking itonthe road.Timefor MOJO to dive intotheelaborate creation, and re-creationrof * a masterpiece. "It's fucking long," discovers TOM DOYL! . "Itgoes on I forever, mate."

Reverberation game: Pink Floyd going deep, Fillmore East, New York, September 27, 1970.

Picture by AMALIE R. ROTHSCHILD

NA REHEARSAL SPACE IN NORTH LONDON, NICK MASON SITS BEHIND HIS DRUM kit, listening to himself shouting 50 years ago. As he builds up a tom-tom tattoo to accompany a familiar echoing bassline, his mangled, pitched-down voice, recorded back in 1971 (and now sampled), dementedly barks through the PA: “I’m going to cut you into little pieces…”

Around him, his Saucerful Of Secrets band – trading in ’67-’72 Pink Floyd since 2018 – kick into the proto-headbanger crescendo of One Of These Days, the opening track from 1971’s Meddle. After the song culminates in a flurr y of cymbal and guitar noise, MOJO wonders aloud: isn’t Mason tempted to set up a microphone and re-enact his vocal role live?

“Yes, I am tempted, and we have looked at that, and we might do that,” he gently laughs, sitting behind dr ums whose shells are illustrated with a cartoonish Native American war riorcum-biker figure and emblazoned with the playful legend “Mighty Mason”.

More Meddle follows, with a confident stride through Fearless, with Saucers singer/guitarist Gar y Kemp and bassist/singer Guy Pratt replicating those double-tracked David Gilmour harmonies, ending with a blast of haunting audio, as the field recording of ’70s Liverpool fans chanting You’ll Never Walk Alone resounds through the practice room.

Four years ago, Pink Floyd’s redundant drummer – bored and twiddling his thumbs at home for more than two decades – first assembled Saucerful Of Secrets, at the suggestion of guitarist and former Blockhead Lee Harris (the five-piece line-up is completed by onetime Orb keyboardist Dom Beken). For Mason, it was an exercise in getting back to playing music, while paying tribute to the founding era of his former band.

Although their set remains Syd Barrettheavy, Saucerful Of Secrets are now nudging the limits of their self-imposed remit to play anything and everything from the Floyd catalogue before ’73’s monumental The Dark Side Of The Moon. Next today, they unveil for MOJO their version of the dreamy Burning Bridges from ’72’s Obscured By Clouds.

“I don’t think we ever played that live,” Mason says of Floyd past. “There’s probably some nerd out there who will produce evidence that we did.”

“It’s a beauty,” adds Gar y Kemp. “The funny thing about Burning Bridges is you can’t play it slow enough. Because there’s playing music slowly, and then there’s playing music as slow as Pink Floyd.”

Tantalisingly, Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets (to give them their full billing) have chosen to call their upcoming 2022 American and European jaunt The Echoes Tour. The 23-minute-long Echoes, the multi-movement ambient rock classic that ate side two of Meddle – and pointed the way for ward for Floyd as they fully left the ’60s (and Syd’s influence) behind – was notably missing from early Saucers sets. So, why decide to tackle Echoes now?

“I think it was just too much of a mouthful to kick off with on the first attempt,” says Mason. “Echoes is such a sort of piece in its own right.”

From its signature sonar pings onwards, Echoes was and remains a revelator y composition, moving through atmospheric introduction, chromatic riffing, David Gilmour and Rick Wright’s close harmonising, a funky Hammond workout and five whole minutes of avant-noise, before reaching a climax reprising its various themes. No wonder, perhaps, that Mason and Saucerful Of Secrets considered it daunting to replicate.

Andrew Cotterill, John Rettie

Amalie R. Rothschild

Today, the band choose not to play their workin-progress Echoes for MOJO, concerned that the precise details of their new version will leak too soon. This slight trepidation can perhaps be explained by the fact that Nick Mason views Meddle “as one of the critical albums” for Pink Floyd. “Something like Ummagumma or Atom Heart Mother were interesting,” he states. “But they weren’t part of the for ward motion.”

“The challenge is, do we play Echoes exactly as it was on the record? No, thank you.”

NICK MASON

IT’S T’S EARLY 1971 AND “FORWARD MOTION”, as far as Pink Floyd are concerned, is proving elusive. The four members of the band are in the Studio Three control room at Abbey Road, talking to a reporter from the BBC1 24 Hours magazine programme about the phenomenon of vinyl bootleg albums. They look distinctly unimpressed as they listen to a warped, lo-fi live version of Atom Heart Mother from an illicit pressing titled Pinky. “Compared with studio recordings, it is disgusting,” fumes Floyd manager Steve O’Rourke.

“Their reactions weren’t perhaps so surprising,” notes the unnamed reporter in voiceover. “Producing pop music today is sophisticated and expensive.” The footage cuts to David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Rick Wright and Nick Mason in the live room, working on their latest composition: an early draft of the introduction to Echoes. All four are lost in concentration and give the impression of being deeply stoned.