![]() Gilmour again wields his slide, coaxing band, choir and horns back to full power. ![]() The careful listener is rewarded here … while others may flee. The section “Mind Your Throats, Please,” at first recalls the Beatles’ “Number Nine,” electronic noodling evolving into metallic din. The chorus goes native, descending into an aggressive chant right out of “The Exorcist.” The main theme returns in full throat, drums pounding as the French horns slice the air. Gilmour’s guitar and Wright’s B-3 take the wheel in “Funky Dung,” a white boy blues jam straight out of 10 Years After. ![]() The rock band returns in the lengthy section’s final minute, providing much-needed relief. Here is the softest of these six passages. In Mother Fore, the choir sings as if in Mass, backed by Hammond B-3 organ. Gilmour’s slide guitar turns things back to rock, with the horns reasserting the suite’s theme. We hear horses and motorcycles moving through as the French horns play bravely on, establishing the “Atom Heart Mother” theme.īreast Milky offers a cello part, framed by Richard Wright’s loopy organ riff and a supple bass. French horns manage a woobly fanfare, soon set straight by a display of of Pink Floyd’s rock muscle. The suite consisted of six parts, the parameters of each on the fuzzy side:įather’s Shout sneaks in with 30 seconds of near-silence - a faint buzz. Other key instruments in the piece are French horns and cello. Of the Pink Floyd members, only Gilmour gets a solo section. Geesin arranged the work, calling in the John Aldiss Choir and an orchestral brass section, which collectively soared above the psychedelic band’s basic tracks of guitar, drums and keyboards. They turned to British avant-garde composer Ron Geesin, who’d done an offbeat side project with Waters. In 1970, Pink Floyd had been performing in concert an extended piece that would come to be variously known as “Theme From an Imaginary Western,” “Epic” and “Amazing Pudding.” Gilmour and Waters reportedly wanted to write a classically structured work around its themes, but came up frustrated. (Update: The album was rereleased as part of the 2011 Pink Floyd upgrades.) So of course plenty of Pink Floyd diehards love the “Atom Heart Mother” suite, all 24 minutes of it. Rolling Stone agreed, calling the suite “awful schmaltzy” and “a step headlong into the last century … a dissipation of (Pink Floyd’s) collective talents.” Waters, creator of “ The Wall,” later suggested that the piece should “never (be) listened to by anyone ever again.” Guitarist David Gilmour called it “pretty horrible” - “absolute crap.” Roger Waters picked up a copy of the Evening Standard newspaper, in which he found a story about a woman about to receive a nuclear-powered pacemaker.Īnd so we have “Atom Heart Mother,” one of the band’s most-debated works, a sprawling suite that’s by turns exhilarating, monotonous, hypnotic, pretentious and primeval. This lack of focus means Atom Heart Mother will largely be for cultists, but its unevenness means there's also a lot to cherish here.The year 1970 found Pink Floyd in search of a title for their latest musical exploration, a psychedelic suite of sorts. That it lasts an entire side illustrates that Pink Floyd was getting better with the larger picture instead of the details, since the second side just winds up falling off the tracks, no matter how many good moments there are. So, there are interesting moments scattered throughout the record, and the work that initially seems so impenetrable winds up being Atom Heart Mother's strongest moment. ![]() "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast," the 12-minute opus that ends the album, does the same thing, floating for several minutes before ending on a drawn-out jam that finally gets the piece moving. Of these, Waters begins developing the voice that made him the group's lead songwriter during their classic era with "If," while Wright has an appealingly mannered, very English psychedelic fantasia on "Summer 68," and Gilmour's "Fat Old Sun" meanders quietly before ending with a guitar workout that leaves no impression. Then, on the second side, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Rick Wright have a song apiece, winding up with the group composition "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" wrapping it up. Still, it may be an acquired taste even for fans, especially since it kicks off with a side-long, 23-minute extended orchestral piece that may not seem to head anywhere, but is often intriguing, more in what it suggests than what it achieves. If anything, this is the most impenetrable album Pink Floyd released while on Harvest, which also makes it one of the most interesting of the era. Appearing after the sprawling, unfocused double-album set Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother may boast more focus, even a concept, yet that doesn't mean it's more accessible. ![]()
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