Following the release of the 1977 album
Animals
and its accompanying "In the Flesh" tour,
Pink Floyd
went on hiatus, having become popular enough to support solo albums by bandmembers who were inclined to make them. Guitarist
David Gilmour
and keyboard player
Richard Wright
were. For his album,
Wright
assembled some of the backing musicians who had been accompanying
for years, in particular reed player
Mel Collins
and guitarist
Snowy White
. So it was no surprise that the resulting record,
Wet Dream
, sounded like outtakes from
sessions.
's keyboards had always been a major element in the
sound, and his singing and songwriting had also been a big part of the group's music, despite the increasing domination of
Roger Waters
. On
, he was interested in providing typically slow, contemplative, keyboard-based arrangements and singing (on about every other tune) in a becalmed, echoey voice of marital discord and escape.
's conflict with
Waters
shortly would lead to his being dismissed from
(and then, bizarrely, hired back as a sideman), and in a sense his release of
could be seen as an attempt to step out on his own. But the material, while pleasant enough, seemed more like music he might have written to work on with
if he still had as much input into the group as he had had back around the time of
Dark Side of the Moon
, rather than like an independent solo statement. It was hard to imagine anyone but
fans wanting to listen to such an album, and as it turned out not even enough of them cared, since the album sold poorly. ~ William Ruhlmann