06 January 2026: Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here 50"; The Third Mind: A Tribute to the Dreammachine

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Wish You Were Here has been a mainstay on all-time greatest albums lists for decades. The multi-Platinum-selling #1 hit record was Pink Floyd’s first to reach the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, becoming the band’s fastest selling album. In 1973, The Dark Side of the Moon had taken Pink Floyd from a hugely successful breakout British band to one of the biggest rock groups on the planet. Wish You Were Here was the band’s powerful response to their newfound global fame.

Featuring the multi-part eulogy to Syd Barrett ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, the hypnotic ‘Welcome To The Machine’, the scathing ‘Have a Cigar’ with its immortal line “Oh by the way, which one’s Pink?” famously sung not by Waters or Gilmour, but by non band-member Roy Harper, and the essential title track, Wish You Were Here is undoubtedly one of the most important album releases in the history of popular music.

The record’s themes of absence, isolation, transience, and comment on the insincerity of the music business are embodied in the iconic album artwork. The visual puns developed by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell at Hipgnosis remain instantly recognisable visual statements today.

Remembering that time, Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell said:

“In the 1970s, album covers were equally as important as the music, because the cover helped to sell the record. Record stores would carry 10,000 different images in album sleeves, so what we were doing had to look different and stand out amongst the crowd.

I remember turning around to Storm and saying, how are we going to set a man on fire? Because there was no digital way of doing it in those days. He said, Po, you’re just going to have to do it for real. That was it.

One has to remember that Pink Floyd were the only band on EMI and Capitol Records who had the rights to the creative – in terms of album cover – besides the Beatles. That’s why we were allowed to do what we wanted. It was brilliant. Just the same way that Pink Floyd were a very inventive band at the time, so were Hipgnosis. We were determined to keep that abstract, enigmatic image alive and hence, we were able to do that for Pink Floyd.”

In 2025 the ardent support and fascination surrounding Pink Floyd’s music remains. The newly restored version of their groundbreaking 1972 film Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII stormed box offices around the world, with the live album debuting at #1 on the UK Albums Chart, marking the band’s first UK chart-topper in eleven years and the seventh in their career. The film was praised by critics and audiences the world over, with The Guardian describing it as a “mesmerically peculiar portrait of a band on cusp of greatness.” 50 years since its release, Wish You Were Here sounds as resonant and vital as ever, and in reaching this milestone deserves to be celebrated anew. This special anniversary edition allows fans, for the first time, to delve deeper into a pivotal moment in Pink Floyd’s history.

The Dreamachine, conceived in 1959 by Brion Gysin in collaboration with the mathematician Ian Sommerville, was an experiment in expanded consciousness. A flickering cylinder of light designed to be viewed with closed eyes, it sought to induce visionary states, to dissolve the boundaries of perception, and to reveal the inner landscapes of the mind. Gysin regarded it as the first work of art meant to be seen with the eyes shut, an inversion of traditional aesthetics, turning vision inward rather than outward. It was around the aura of the Dreamachine that Gysin’s creative alliance with William S. Burroughs deepened. Both artists shared an obsession with breaking down systems of control, linguistic, social, and perceptual. Gysin’s discovery of the cut-up technique became one of Burroughs’ most radical tools, just as Burroughs’ prose amplified Gysin’s explorations into altered states and the mechanics of thought. Together, they envisioned what they called The Third Mind: a new consciousness that could emerge from the fusion of two creative intelligences, transcending individuality and generating something other, stranger, and more powerful than either artist alone. This compilation invites contemporary musicians to pay tribute to that visionary partnership. Each track seeks to channel the spirit of experimentation, psychedelia, and radical perception that defined their work, whether through hypnotic repetition, immersive soundscapes, or altered states of sonic awareness. What emerges is a collective attempt to listen through the ears of The Third Mind itself, and to continue the experiment Gysin and Burroughs began more than half a century ago.

This release is an independent tribute inspired by the work of Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs and Ian Sommerville. It is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by their estates.  

credits

releases January 15, 2026

REVIEWS

Ver Sacrum 
www.versacrum.com/vs/2026/01/the-third-mind-a-sonic-tribute-to-the-dreamachine-various-artists.html

BizarreChats 
bizarrechats.blogspot.com/2026/01/unexplained-sounds-third-mind-sonic.html


Related release: a previous Unexplained Sounds Group compilation dedicated to William S. Burroughs’ cut-up technique: 
unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/cut-up-deconstructing-w-s-burroughs

FreeForm thanks  Raffaele Pezzella for a complimentary copy of this release.

Curated and mastered by Raffaele Pezzella.
Layout by Matteo Mariano. 
Published by Unexplained Sounds Group.
Cat. Num. USG114.
© 2026 All rights reserved.

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