David Gilmour released his new record, Luck and Strange, on September 6. The legendary guitarist/songwriter/singer for Pink Floyd leaned on his family for inspiration on the 9-track record, which the 78-year-old musician referred to in the press kit as, “the best album I’ve made since Dark Side of the Moon, since 1973.” Gilmour’s wife Polly Samson published a novel, A Theatre For Dreamers, the week that the pandemic lockdown hit in 2020. Their son Charlie hatched an idea of Gilmour doing livestream performances, which featured some Leonard Cohen covers, who was a character in Samson’s book.

“It started pretty much only on Polly’s book as a focus, but then it became broader,” Gilmour recalls. “We got our daughter Romany to sing along and play with me, and that showed me that we have got that lovely sort of family tonality that happens — Beach Boys, Everly Brothers. All these things came together to create a different mood and a different feeling for the making of this album. It left me feeling I don’t need to stick with any pre-rule book or anything that’s gone before. I can be freer to do anything I feel like.” (Billboard)