•
Rating:
The Pink Floyd are one of those few bands that always try to paint musical canvases different from the previous ones.
This is the case with the grandiose Atom Heart Mother from 1970, which follows the soundtrack More and the double Ummagumma. After the departure of Syd Barrett, the Floyds were in search of a new path that couldn’t be the pop-psychedelic song format attempted with Wright's singles in '68. The right path was that of sound experimentation led (but only in part!) by Gilmour and the conceptual poetry of Waters’ mind. Even though they were far from the crystalline and perfect structure of Dark Side of the Moon and the concept albums of the late decade, Pink Floyd managed to create a work worthy of their name.
The Floyds’ creative approach in those years was based on improvisations in the recording studio and the exhausting tours where the embryos of their songs took shape and form, to then return—again—to the recording studio and be captured on tape. Atom Heart Mother was born this way... at least in part. Indeed, the LP is divided—at least for the listener—into two sections: the first entirely taken up by the long and eponymous suite, and the second containing pleasant (but nothing more) acoustic tracks with a more conventional sound format, and—a bit like a hidden track—a playful sound collage of a typical English breakfast.
What is crucial to analyze is the suite on the first side, structured into various interlinked sections:
- a. Father's Shout
- b. Breast Milky
- c. Mother Fore
- d. Funky Dung
- e. Mind Your Throats Please
- f. Remergence
Initially composed by the Pink Floyd alone (who recorded the entire base with guitar, bass, organ, and drums), the suite evolved with the orchestral scores and overall production by Geesin. The suite—with a vaguely cinematic flavor in some parts—takes off on the colossal notes of Gilmour’s western-like theme (Morricone probably wouldn't have minded listening) and then gives way to the syncopated countermelody notes of the brass arranged—as previously mentioned—by the talented Geesin, who faced several challenges while writing the scores since the Floyds (and in particular drummer Mason) had the habit of playing slightly behind the beat, and so, to avoid re-recording the base, the orchestral music was made to sound cohesive despite the B-list orchestra musicians supplied by Emi. The track then transitions to a spine-chilling duet between electric piano and bass (with the addition of a viola)—perhaps one of the best moments in the band’s entire career—to arrive at an upwards crescendo of choral and organ dialogues from Wright, and finally settle on a soundscape made of tape collages reminiscent of Lennon’s Revolution 9 from the White Album of 1968.
Having come down from this enveloping audio creation, capable of conjuring epic visions in the human mind (not kaleidoscopic as all is very structured and leaves little room for the space band informalities of the first two albums), the Floyds lull us with three tracks of a more human flavor, largely realized with the use of acoustic instruments.
Waters, with just an acoustic guitar, carries his flaws across a delightful whispered melody into the microphone in "If." Wright, in the style of "Remember a Day," delights us with his piano and his sexual adventures in "Summer '68." Gilmour, almost bashful, composes a bucolic track to be heard while dozing in a forest near some stream... these are tracks that, while perhaps not excellent, pave the way for those melodic lines that, through further development in Meddle and Obscured by Clouds, would lead to the realization of Dark Side of The Moon in '75.
The album ends with a bizarre and playful sound adventure made of fried eggs (in the literal sense of the word) and instrumental breaks of brass and guitar, the English breakfast seen through the slightly red eyes of the Pink Floyd.....
All in all, it’s a good LP, not the best in Rock history (just a few months earlier the better In the Court of the Crimson King by Fripp and company) and not even the best of Pink Floyd as it is essentially a musical laboratory that would only conclude with the release of the Floydian trilogy of Dark Side of the Moon, Shine on You Crazy Diamond, and Animals.
A record that cannot be missing from the musical cellar of AOR enthusiasts....
P.S. Listen with headphones!
Loading comments slowly
