How David Gilmour’s work with Kate Bush and The Orb pushed him outside Floyd’s comfort zone

David Gilmour’s guitar on Kate Bush’s The Dreaming (1982) — specifically the track “Pull Out the Pin” — is a fascinating departure from his Pink Floyd work. Bush’s world-music percussion, multi-tracked vocals, and abrupt rhythmic shifts forced Gilmour to play less like a lead guitarist and more like a textural colorist. He later said he loved how “out there” the sessions were, even if he didn’t fully understand where Bush was going. It’s a rare moment where his playing sounds brittle and anxious, not smooth or expansive.

Nearly thirty years later, Metallic Spheres (2010) with The Orb put him in a dub-techno environment. Instead of song structures, he had to improv