Obscured by Clouds
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Free Music Notes for Obscured by Clouds
Free Music Review: Gorgeously arranged
Hit: 5 Stars
This is the last album before Dark Side of The Moon and the last soundtrack that they had made. It's often unfairly overlooked because Dark Side of The Moon came next and....well you know the whole story with Dark Side of The Moon. But this album should be given greater credit than it is given. The band finally get to grips with the machines that they had been trying to mastering since 1967....and while those albums are brilliant in their own way, they still gave you the feeling that they were haunted by Syd, musically. They always were haunted by Syd of course, but pre-Dark Side seemed to show it even more. It was only by the time Meddle had arrived that they were beginning to shift musically and were beginning a more settled patch.
From the start of the album, the album sees a band more confident in their abilities. The songwriting is more assured although perhaps missing some of the quirks that made some of their earlier albums a bit more fun ( I use that term loosely, some people might not see it ). But the quality of the music cannot be faulted.....as I've said it is more assured, more powerful and while not quite forceful, it certainly doesn't descend into mania like what would've happened earlier. It's the first time where you really sense they've learned to control themselves without hampering the music. It's also quite pastoral too which is quite welcome.
Having said all this, it still strikes me as an odd album for a soundtrack because if you take away the fact that it was a soundtrack this would be a very decent rock album. Having seen the film, it underused many of the tracks and does the music a disservice I feel. But then that's not the point really is it? The film's not much really....but it would be a crime to forget about this album because it's not Dark Side of The Moon or it was the one before. If you want the big picture you've got to look at the finer details that went on beforehand.
Free Music Review: 3.5 Stars
Hit: 3 Stars
Pink Floyd doesn't like to make things easy, I guess, so before jumping into what many consider their masterpieces, they took another trip down film-scoring lane. While an improvement over their earlier efforts in this area, the scoring leads to a less than cohesive album...one dictated by the events in the film, rather than the thoughts of the band's writers...and it suffers for it.Free Music Review: The last soundtrack album before PF entered the Dark Side
Hit: 4 Stars
This is an extremely interesting collection of songs if only because it present Pink Floyd on the cusp of their breakthrough album "Dark Side of the Moon". Many of the trademark ideas and stylistic creations that have been etched so deeply on millions of fans and FM radio listeners can be found here, though given a slightly more tentative rendition. This is a mature band coming fully into their powers as players and writers and everyone shows their talents, especially David Gilmour and Rick Wright. The blueprints presented here would be improved upon on "Dark Side" the following year, though compared to the previous album "Meddle" the band had made a significant leap forward along the road of mass consumption-friendly rock.
For those put off by PF's space-y/psychedelic/progressive work prior to this I can wholly recommend this album.
Free Music Review: Not Floyd's best, but still solid
Hit: 4 Stars
I just recently decided to pick up two of Pink Floyd's lesser known releases, "Obscured by Clouds" and "Meddle." This one, the soundtrack for the film "La Vallee", is a soild effort from Floyd. Four of the ten tracks are instrumentals. In fact, the album starts with two of them, the title track and "When You're In." The first track with lyrics is the gentle "Burning Bridges" with David Gilmour and Richard Wright sharing lead vocals. The next cut is the hardest rocking song on the album "The Gold It's In The..." with Gilmour strutting his stuff on guitar. "Wots...Uh The Deal" and "Stay", the latter featuring a rare solo lead vocal performance by Wright, are also nice ballads. "Free Four", where Roger Waters looks into life and death, has an almost jolly beat behind some rather morbid lyrics. Waters mentions his father's death in World War II in this song when he sings "You are the angel of death/And I am the dead man's son/He was buried like a mole in a foxhole/And everyone's still on the run."
Overall, while not a masterpiece like "Dark Side Of The Moon", this is still a very good album and a worthy addition to your Pink Floyd collection.
Free Music Review: Pink Floyd's third and last soundtrack is the primer before the classic
Hit: 5 Stars
Pink Floyd released their eighth album (overall) Obscured by Clouds in June of 1972.
The album was a soundtrack to the French film La Vallee, which was directed by Barbet Schroder.
Obscured by Clouds was the band's second film soundtrack for Schroder, their first was the 1969 movie More and was their fourth overall as they also did songs for the movies The Committee and 1970's Zabriske Point.
I first heard and obtained a copy of Obscured by Clouds when I was 11 years old on cassette in July of 1987 and I now have the remaster on CD (superbly remastered by James Guthrie and Doug Sax) and the sound on the remaster is like night and day (it buries the cassette and original CD).
The album was produced by Pink Floyd themselves and was recorded in a week at the Chateau D'herouville(a/k/a the Honky Chateau as Elton John called it) in France in late February of 1972 during a break from touring Europe.
Obscured by Clouds kicks off with the title cut (featuring excellent synth work from both keyboard player Rick Wright and bass player/singer Roger Waters and slide guitar from guitarist/singer David Gilmour) which then segues into "When You're In" (with excellent drumming from drummer Nick Mason). Those two tracks were staples of Floyd shows in 1973 on the Dark Side tour. "Burning Bridges" follows and has a great vocal from Gilmour and Wright and is a great tune. "The Gold It's In The..." is a hard rocker with some great guitar work from Gilmour. "Wots...Uh the Deal" follows and is a great song with excellent keyboard work from Wright and great vocals and guitar work from Gilmour. the track was recently resurrected by Gilmour for his On an Island tour in 2006. Next is an instrumental version of Burning Bridges entitled "Mudmen" which is in a different tempo than Burning Bridges.
Side two kicked off with "Childhood's End" (one of Gilmour's best songs ever). Next is "Free Four" which was Waters' first song mentioning the word run which would appear more dominantly on future Floyd albums, it also talks about war and death for the first time and those subjects would appear more dominantly on The Wall and The Final Cut. Free Four was the first Floyd track which got substantial airplay on American rock radio. Next was "Stay", which had an excellent vocal from Wright. The album closes with the atmospheric instrumental entitled "Absolutely Curtains" which features synthesizer work from Gilmour, Waters and Wright and percussion work from Mason and the New Guinea tribe, from the actual La Vallee film itself, conclude this track.
Obscured by Clouds was the album released before 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon and was the band's first ever US Top 50 album peaking at #46 and eventually obtaining Gold status.
Highly recommended.