On The Road Again: Pink Floyd "Atom Heart Mother"

martes, 11 de julio de 2017

Pink Floyd "Atom Heart Mother"

Atom Heart Mother is the fifth studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was released by Harvest on 2 October 1970 in the UK, and by Capitol on 10 October 1970 in the US. It was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, England, and was the band's first album to reach number 1 in the UK, while it reached number 55 in the US, eventually going gold there. A remastered CD was released in 1994 in the UK and the United States, and again in 2011. Ron Geesin, who had already influenced and collaborated with Roger Waters, contributed to the title track and received a then-rare outside songwriting credit.

The cover was designed by Hipgnosis, and was the first one to not feature the band's name on the cover, or contain any photographs of the band anywhere. This was a trend that would continue on subsequent covers throughout the 1970s and beyond.

Although it was commercially successful on release, the band, particularly Waters and David Gilmour, have expressed several negative opinions of the album in more recent years. Nevertheless, it remained popular enough for Gilmour to perform the title track with Geesin in 2008.

The original album cover, designed by art collective Hipgnosis, shows a cow standing in a pasture with no text nor any other clue as to what might be on the record. Some later editions have the title and artist name added to the cover. This concept was the group's reaction to the psychedelic space rock imagery associated with Pink Floyd at the time of the album's release; the band wanted to explore all sorts of music without being limited to a particular image or style of performance. They thus requested that their new album had "something plain" on the cover, which ended up being the image of a cow. Storm Thorgerson, inspired by Andy Warhol's famous "cow wallpaper", has said that he simply drove out into a rural area near Potters Bar and photographed the first cow he saw. The cow's owner identified her name as "Lulubelle III". More cows appear on the back cover, again with no text or titles, and on the inside gatefold. Also, a pink balloon shaped like a cow udder accompanied the album as part of Capitol's marketing strategy campaign to "break" the band in the US. The liner notes in later CD editions give a recipe for Traditional Bedouin Wedding Feast on a card labelled "Breakfast Tips". Looking back on the artwork, Thorgerson remembered: "I think the cow represents, in terms of the Pink Floyd, part of their humour, which I think is often underestimated or just unwritten about."

In the mid-1970s, a bootleg containing rare singles and B-sides entitled The Dark Side of the Moo appeared, with a similar cover. Like Atom Heart Mother, the cover had no writing on it, although in this case it was to protect the bootlegger's anonymity rather than any artistic statement. The album cover to The KLF's concept album Chill Out was also inspired by Atom Heart Mother.

The band were initially enthusiastic about performing the suite. An early performance was taped for the San Francisco based television station KQED, featuring just the band, on 28 April 1970. Two major performances were at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music on 27 June and the "Blackhills Garden Party" in Hyde Park, London on 18 July. On both occasions the band were accompanied by the John Alldis Choir and the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. Later, the band took a full brass section and choir on tour just for the purpose of performing this piece. However, this caused the tour to lose money, and the band found problems with the hired musicians, which changed from gig to gig as they simply took who was available, which, combined with lack of rehearsal and problems miking up the whole ensemble, made a full live performance more problematic. Reflecting on this, Gilmour said "some of the brass players have been really hopeless". According to Mason, the band arrived at one gig in Aachen, Germany, only to discover they had left the sheet music behind, forcing tour manager Tony Howard to go back to London and get it.

A later arrangement without brass or choir, and pared down from 25 minutes to fifteen by omitting the "collage" sections and closing reprise of the main theme, remained in their live repertoire into 1972. The first live performance of The Dark Side of the Moon suite in Brighton was abandoned partway through; after a break, the band played Atom Heart Mother instead. Pink Floyd's last live performance of the suite took place on 22 May 1972 at the Olympisch Stadion, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Stanley Kubrick wanted to use the album's title track in A Clockwork Orange. The group refused permission, primarily because Kubrick was unsure of exactly which pieces of music he wanted and what he wished to do with them. In retrospect, Waters said "maybe it's just as well it wasn't used after all". Nevertheless, the album is visible behind the counter in the record store scene of the film.

On 14 and 15 June 2008, Geesin performed "Atom Heart Mother" with Italian tribute band Mun Floyd over two nights as part of the Chelsea Festival. Geesin introduced it with a history and slide show. The performances featured the chamber choir Canticum, brass and cellist Caroline Dale, who has worked with Gilmour. The second night saw Gilmour join Geesin on stage for the performance, which was extended to 30 minutes.

In 2013, Geesin produced a book, The Flaming Cow, which documented his experience with working with Pink Floyd, including the making of this album from his point of view.

Track listing

Side one

"Atom Heart Mother" 23:44

I. "Father's Shout"

II. "Breast Milky"

III. "Mother Fore"

IV. "Funky Dung"

V. "Mind Your Throats Please"

VI. "Remergence"

Total length: 23:44

Side two

"If" Waters 4:31