This is enormous. It is indulgent. It's the kind of stuff fan boy wet dreams are made of. It's utterly unnecessary, and bundles of fun. If you like early Pink Floyd this is nirvana.



It's not perfect. But when you have a 33 disc set made of around 244 tracks, over 20 hours of audio and video spread over countless CD's, DVD's + Blu Rays, with dozens of TV appearances, three full live concerts, feature films, several books, 5 reproduction 7 singles, and bundles of extra bits of paper, it's inevitable there might be the odd glitch : (here a couple of the Blu-Rays may not have fully working menus and you can get free replacements). One of the CD's has a mispressed live set – 1972 contains the Pompeii live soundtrack by mistake on some versions and so, a replacement CD of unreleased studio mixes is included.



It's exhaustive. Over a month after getting it, with the Christmas holidays in, I still haven't listened to or watched all of it. But what it is is a definitive smorgasboard of every official non-album Pink Floyd recording from those years, presented in the best quality you can get. 9 full concerts (2 of which, for some reason, were recorded without audible vocals). All 5 BBC Sessions : and almost all of them taken from the original BBC Archives. Numerous unreleased demos, soundtrack recordings, unreleased studio material, and alternate mixes. It really is everything you could realistically ask for as a Floyd trainspotter.



Every recording – audio and video – has been meticulously restored and re-engineered. Old film clips on scratchy 8mm film, over 1,000,000 frames of it (and thus, over twelve hours), has been scanned, repaired, and restored to the best possible quality given the transient and temporary nature of the time. This was just silly pop music, nobody thought it would last let alone be released on a 33 disc box set 49 years later. And then Floyd were onto the next thing, recording improvisational soundtrack pieces for films and Moon landings, and films such as More, Zabriskie Point, The Committee, La Vallee – the unused portions of which are all comprehensively presented here.



There are, content wise, some imperfections. There is a vocal song - “Seabirds” - only in the film of “More”, and since it was work for hire, the band could not keep a copy of it themselves. It is the only major missing piece. (There is a instrumental piece called “Seabirds” on this box set but its an instrumental and very different). Across the box set, the soundtrack material is what the band recorded but was not used in the film. If it was in the film but not the soundtrack album, generally it's now lost. But then, you get a full disc of unused Zabriskie Point jams, including an embryonic version of “Us And Them”. (You'll need to buy the 1997 2CD reissue of the Zabriskie Point soundtrack for the other 7 songs).



Editiorially, there is a decision to remix/revamp the 1972 album 'Obscured By Clouds' instead of any genuinely unreleased material. I can barely tell the difference, and it seems a bit pointless, especially when there is a full 1972 concert recording from Brighton that isn't included. Luckily some pressings contain the Pomepii film soundtrack by mistake, which is a fortunate error. But overall, you get as much as you could reasonably hope for.



There are also some issues sound wise, but thankfully not major. The BBC wiped the tapes for one session, so the only version of the performances available are off-air cassette recordings of the broadcasts. By nature they are hissy and don't sound quite as good as the rest, but well worth having rather than not at all. Context is everything : these are the recordings and documents left behind by a hard working band 50 years ago that were never meant for release.



Each portion is divided by year into a hardback book of audio, and DVD's/Blu Rays by year. Some years there is plenty. Other years, not so much. But as much as you could hope for is generally here. It's an expensive, indulgent luxury of a release – treat yourself.