The Band Members: Daniel Elliott, guitars, vocals; Beth Dunn, lead vocals; Ben Marshall, bass; Sam Teather, drums; Sam Ewens, brass
The Storyteller: Daniel Elliott
The Song: The foreboding beauty of Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky” brilliantly brings forth how minimalist piano chording can ultimately open up into a grandiose soundscape tackling the inevitability of death. Within this British musical luminaries’ rock overture, eerie minor-to-major melodic modulations elevate the track, leaving the listener in an unsettled yet wondrous state.
This three-dimensional musical mortality sequence is built upon a splendid trifecta of auditory shifts — Richard Wright’s mournful keyed melody interspersed with stoic spoken-word snippets, before giving way to guest vocalist Clare Torry’s agonizing wordless wails of bewilderment. This emotive crescendo is eventually strengthened by rich analog warmth and a focused rhythm of muted grooves.
Stripping away conventional lyricism, this aberration in standard songwriting stands out due to the straightforward, pseudo-psychopomp testimony given by Abbey Road doorman Gerry O’Driscoll: “…Why should I be frightened of dying? There is no reason for it….” This stark inclusion in the celebrated track captures the emotional peak of Pink Floyd’s legendary conceptual musical tome, The Dark Side of the Moon, serving as a marker for the ultimate, inescapable transition from the anxieties of mortal life to the questions of the great beyond.
The Background: Attuning to one another's harmonic hums and rhythmic thrums, the members of Tokyo Tea Room found themselves inexplicably aligned in a melodic alliance within the area of Canterbury, UK, before shifting their internal dream-pop musical worlds toward Margate’s coastal shores—part of Kent’s Creative Isle—where they began fine-tuning their hazy twilight symphonies by the sea.
Ensconcing themselves within guitarist and producer Dan Elliott’s personal recording space, they transformed the studio into a sanctuary where they refined their scintillating shoegaze textures, swirling phased-out basslines, and beautiful gauzy vocals. Embracing the scrupulous process of deciphering the structure and precise placement of every note, the hypnagogic pop band released a string of EPs stretching back to the mid-2010s, each showcasing soft swells of prismatic tones that highlighted their half-light reveries.
After holding court, playing throughout the UK for several years, their popularity jumped exponentially when their breakout single “Forever Out of Time” from their 2019 Dream Room EP spun Tokyo Tea Room into the hyper-speed stratosphere of algorithmic space. With the debut of their first full-length, No Rush, arriving in 2025, the sleek-sounding band from Margate rode that rising wave of binary code into the indie-pop mainstream. Their recent sophomore 2026 release, Feel Forever, stands as a finely focused collection of studied, swirling sounds held down with subdued, in-the-pocket rhythmic swings. In due course, their unhurried breakthrough allowed Tokyo Tea Room to perfect their studio soundscapes — a stretch of time that was well worth the wait.
The Story: Prior to stepping behind the boards and extensive touring with Tokyo Tea Room — guitarist and producer Daniel Elliott found himself drawn to the layered song structure and intense beauty of “The Great Gig in the Sky.” While initially heard at a very young age through family ties, it inevitably cut through the chaos of the world in late adolescence — a transient scene where music intercedes on behalf of memory, as Elliott recalls:
“It’s such a British thing, but it’s Pink Floyd — this track, as well as the entire album, was a game changer for my life,” he explains. “I must have been in my late teens and a vagabond at the time. I was staying at my friend’s old, beautiful house near Brighton. The place was kind of out in the sticks in the middle of nowhere… his mum owned it and rented out rooms, so it was a bit of a halfway house for a bunch of random people.”
Removed from the distractions of ordinary life, the isolation of the house became an echo chamber — an enclosed world where listening to a record could unfold without interruption, starkly mirroring the heavy realities of the lives gathered inside.
“It had these beautiful stone floors and a great big wooden kitchen table. I remember there were a couple of guys renting rooms having a couple of whiskeys, and the four of us were listening to The Dark Side of the Moon, Elliott recalls. “I don’t think anyone spoke for the entirety of the album,” he says. “That’s how intense that moment was for all of us.”
Then “The Great Gig in the Sky” arrived.
“When the song [dropped], I remember it just clicking with my life at the time,” he says. “I was starting to live on my own and experiencing the world alone. The song and album are obviously about life and death essentially….heavy topics, real life.”
For Dan, this track struck him during a turbulent transition between youth and adulthood and provided clarity for his developing artistic existence. Within the album’s larger philosophical atmosphere, it was the deceptively simple song structure that ultimately intrigued Elliott:
“I think the reason that it was pivotal is that it evoked such a strong emotional reaction in me. It said so much without even having a single sung lyric in the whole track,” he notes. “It’s obviously one long vocal improvisation, but it spoke to me and influenced how I approach songwriting today.”
Soon after, Elliott began dissecting the song, uncovering the intricate studio craft beneath the composition. The piano, drums, and spacious arrangements became a new tonal vocabulary for understanding how sound could be constructed in a song to produce feelings.
“When you break down every element of that track, you have some beautiful chords and instrumentation, and also some really cool drumming,” Elliott says. “I absolutely love that dead ’70s drum sound.”
This classic Pink Floyd Nick Mason drum sound moved beyond admiration and into Elliott’s own songwriting process:
“All of the drum feels in that track are really, really nice,” Elliott says. “I reference that track for grooves and fills. And I start a lot of my tracks with a rhythmic feel rather than a melody, lyrics, or chord pattern,” adding, “I think Nick Mason did a great job of doing that… I think I’ll always reference drum tone on that album.”
The analytical tracking lessons for Elliott continued, shifting toward guitarist David Gilmour’s guitar work:
“I obviously also have to give a mention to David Gilmour and his guitar tone and those really epic-sounding, reverberated melodies,” Elliott says. “He taught me you don’t have to use more than four notes to really connect with someone emotionally.”
The influence eventually extended to the entire song arrangement, from Roger Waters’ iconic basslines to both musicians’ physical choice of instruments.
“I would reference every single instrument,” Elliott says. “The bass tone is fantastic. It’s phenomenal. I use a Stratocaster, and a Fender Jazz. So, there’s a lot there that I take from them to be honest.”
Yet away from the console, it is the emotive, perspective-shifting power of “The Great Gig in the Sky” that remains with Elliott.
“I go back to that album a lot, a lot…” Elliott notes. “And when I do, the feeling is always the same. It gives me this enormous sense of feeling insignificant, not in a bad way but in a way that nothing matters as much as you think it does.”
For Elliot, though, the real beauty of “The Great Gig in the Sky” lies in how it should be discovered.
“I think the treasure sometimes is when you find a song yourself,” Elliott reflects. “Pink Floyd is huge, and I know that, but it still feels like the song is yours because you found it in the moment of life where you were meant to find it, perhaps. And that is sacred in a way, isn't it? You have to meet that one on your own.”
Photo Credit: Tamibé Bourdanné
