Pink Floyd new song

Pink Floyd have released their first new music in 28 years to aid the relief effort in Ukraine.

The brand new track, Hey, Hey, Rise Up, features the vocals of Ukrainian singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk and is the band’s first new music to be released since their 1994 album The Division Bell. (2015’s The Endless River comprises mainly of material recorded during sessions for The Division Bell)

Guitarist David Gilmore reunited with drummer Nick Mason along with long-serving bassist Guy Pratt and newcomer Nitin Sawhney (keyboards, replacing the late Richard Wright) on 30 March to record the song.

“I hope it will receive wide support and publicity,” said Gilmore in a statement. “We want to raise funds for humanitarian charities, and raise morale. We want to express our support for Ukraine and in that way, show that most of the world thinks that it is totally wrong for a superpower to invade the independent democratic country that Ukraine has become.

Gilmore, who has a Ukrainian family, went on to add: “We, like so many, have been feeling the fury and the frustration of this vile act of an independent, peaceful democratic country being invaded and having its people murdered by one of the world’s major powers.”

The song features Andriy Khlyvnyuk singing the Ukranian song The Red Viburnum in Sofiyskaya Square in the capital Kyiv and is sampled from a viral Instagram video.

“He stands in a square in Kyiv with this beautiful gold-domed church and sings in the silence of a city with no traffic or background noise because of the war,” Gilmour said. “It was a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music.”

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