Starting this weekend The Browse Gallery in Berlin is hosting an exhibition featuring the groundbreaking cover art from Hipgnosis, specifically celebrating Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon for its 50th anniversary. Curated by John Colton and Aubrey “Po” Powell himself, with photographic contributions from special guests. The Exhibition opens to the public this Saturday, 4th November and runs through 17th December, see below for details.

Album Cover Art & Photo Design by Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson

4.11.-17.12.2023

BUY TICKETS HERE

Curation: John Colton & Aubrey Powell with photographic contributions from special guests

In 1973 Pink Floyd released their album The Dark Side of the Moon. The record sleeve for it was designed by the British art house HIPGNOSIS, founded in 1969 by Pink Floyd friends Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell. The album is an icon of rock music history. Music and cover of the record became cult, as well as Pink Floyd and HIPGNOSIS.

Browse Gallery presents the world’s only exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Dark Side of the Moon in two parts.

HIPGNOSIS: The Dark Side of the Moon and Other Album Cover Art

On display inside are artistic works of groundbreaking album cover art by HIPGNOSIS: history and design of The Dark Side of the Moon, magnificent art prints of other Pink Floyd record cover motifs, and photo designs for other music greats of the 70s: Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney, 10cc and others.
Also on display as a special feature are black and white photos of the band – on and off stage – taken during The Dark Side of The Moon Tour 1973. Pink Floyd let Hipgnosis look behind the scenes with 4 photographers*. The result was an intimate portrait of the band at the height of their creative power and friendship. This never existed again.

Photo installation: Themes from The Dark Side of the Moon

The concept album addresses various stages of existential human experience and coming of age: the search for self and a connection with others, the passage of time, the omnipresence of death, money and greed, war and conflict, isolation and madness. Do we choose the light or do we give in to the destructive impulses within ourselves and turn to the dark side of the moon? Universal themes that continue to speak anew to millions of people worldwide, across generations, to this day.  So where are we today, 50 years after the album’s release?

On the occasion of the LP’s anniversary, the curators of the exhibition have asked Berlin and internationally renowned photographers to contribute images that take up themes from The Dark Side of the Moon and stimulate a reflection on their relevance to the present. Photographs contributed by: Nikos Pilos, Robert King, Lisa Bukreyeva, Günter Zint, Barbara Klemm, Gordon Welters, Wolfgang Krolow, Jutta Matthess, Jackie Baier, Holger Gross, Jesus Pastor, Alexander von Reiswitz, Edith Siepmann, Stefan Melchior,  Axel Benzmann, Tomas Petreikis, heba, Oliver Feldhaus, Christina Palitzsch u.a.. Portraits: Sabine Drwenzki, Sönke Tollkühn, John Colton.

Vernissage: November 3, 7 p.m.
with HIPGNOSIS founder Aubrey Powell
Greeting by Klaus Lederer (former Senator of Culture)
Musical performance: Zam Johnson & Guests

Exhibition duration:  4.11. to 17.12.2023
Opening hours: Tue to Sun – 13:00 to 19:00 o’clock
Location: Bergmannstr. 5, 10961 Berlin

Admission: 5€, erm. 3€
Buy ticket online through the pretix ticket portal

Kindly supported by the Berlin ministry for Cultural Affairs and Social Cohesion

Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother will be released as a special 2-disc package in a 7-inch gatefold sleeve, containing the Atom Heart Mother album on CD and a Blu-ray disc featuring footage of Atom Heart Mother (Suite) performed at Hakone Aphrodite Festival, Japan in August 1971 – originally released as part of The Early Years box set. The film has been upgraded from a recently discovered original tape of the time. It also includes a behind the scenes mini documentary. It will be released on Friday 8th December and is now available to pre-order. See the links below.

Originally only released in Japan in 2021, the set contains some unique memorabilia – a special photo book containing many rare, never-seen-before photos, reproductions of the pamphlet, the poster, the concert ticket, and the flier distributed at the event.

The only Pink Floyd footage at Hakone Aphrodite that exists is that of the 16-minute-long suite Atom Heart Mother. The details including whereabouts of the master film and how it was shot had been a mystery for a long time. However, after fifty years, the original 16mm film of this video was discovered in a fan’s garage. The meticulous processes of digitizing, restoring and remastering was undertaken and finally this enhanced video will be released outside of Japan.

Over 50 years ago, Japan’s first international outdoor rock festival “Hakone Aphrodite” was held at a specially built venue beside Hakone Ashinoko Lake on August 6th and 7th, 1971. Pink Floyd’s first-ever concert in Japan was as headliner for the festival. Aspiring to be the Japanese Woodstock, The “Hakone Aphrodite” invited many international artists and became the first rock festival experience for many Japanese fans.

The set contains not only the original live footage (with audio taken from the gig at Hakone Aphrodite), but also behind-the-scenes footage of the band, travelling between the airport, the hotel, the press conference, the bullet train, the show set-up, and, of course, beautiful Japanese scenery.

At the time of the historic concert, Pink Floyd had just released Atom Heart Mother (in October 1970), and were yet to release Meddle (released in November 1971). Pink Floyd appeared as the final act of the festival, and alongside Atom Heart Mother, they performed another five songs including Careful With That Axe, Eugene, A Saucerful Of Secrets, and Echoes from then-unreleased album Meddle. Sadly, official footage of these has not resurfaced. The band’s mystical and fantastic show, enhanced by nature’s unwitting stage effects of fog emerging from the lake when they played, was talked about for years to come. For the show, Pink Floyd used huge PA systems not yet commonly used in Japan back then, and it is widely believed that this show greatly influenced Japanese audio and stage production after that.

Pre-order now: USA | UK

We at AFG would like to wish Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets guitarist and co-founder Lee Harris a very happy birthday! Have a great birthday, Lee! We hope you enjoy your day.

Fingal’s Cave the podcast for all dedicated Pink Floyd fans has posted another new interview. This time featuring David Fidler who worked on Pink Floyd’s quadrophonic team on the 1977 Animals tour! As always, their guests are informative and giving up new information not previously heard before! This is not one to miss!

It’s episode number 8, and we return to the 1977 Animals Tour with our guest David Fidler. David was a good friend of Chris Cockram, whom we had the privilege of interviewing for episode 5. It’s David’s first-ever interview about his sound engineering work with Pink Floyd. David was primarily responsible for Pink Floyd’s quad system, and his memories provide invaluable insights into the challenges Pink Floyd’s crew faced as they supported 56 dates in Europe and North America.

Fingal’s Cave provides an unedited video version with every podcast – something entirely unique for the loyal Pink Floyd fans!