Oddly, Pink Floyd never made a full psych-folk album in the vein of “If” and Gilmour’s “Fat Old Sun,” which becomes even more of a shame when they end Atom Heart Mother with “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast,” a cut-and-paste assemblage of sounds that never coalesces into much of anything. In particular, Waters’ “If” stands among his best compositions, and with his low vocals and Richard Wright’s breezy piano, the song actually brings to mind Nick Drake’s first two records (trivia: Drake’s producer, Joe Boyd, also helmed Pink Floyd’s first single, “Arnold Layne,” in 1967). The results are somewhat better, though, and almost uniformly folksy. The second half borrows the least productive idea from Ummagumma and divides songwriting duties among the band. In this case, they cast an orchestra and a choir as the leads, and the horn fanfare and choral harmonies hint at the even more ambitious arrangements throughout that decade. But “Atom Heart Mother”-all six movements-at the very least shows the band developing and entertaining new ideas, consciously moving away from the space rock label they’d been saddled with. Yes, the album stretches its six-part title track across an entire LP side, and yes, that suite meanders wildly and seemingly without purpose, as though they’re making it up as they go along but getting distracted almost constantly. They’re not exactly wrong, but they’re not exactly right either. For those who know Pink Floyd solely through lyric dominated albums such as "The Wall" and later "dehydrated" Floyd albums, however, it may come as something of a shock.Roger Waters and David Gilmour have spent 40 years playing this 1970 album down, labeling it pompous, overblown, embarrassing-a low point in the band’s creative history. ATOM HEART MOTHER MusicMason/Gilmour/Waters/Wright/Ron Geesin VocalsThe John Aldiss Choir a) Fathers Shout b) Breast Milky c) Mother Fore d) Funky dung. This album is unique and a "must" for any serious Floyd fan. The music is not as strong as the title track, but there is that certain "something" about it (and the album as a whole) that keeps me coming back for more. The album concludes with "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" another instrumental suite punctuated by sound effects and a backround voice. Runout groove: The water faucet drip at the end of Alans Psychedelic Breakfast continues into a locked groove at the end of side B. Inner sleeve: Released with a Harvest Records inner sleeve. In my opinion these songs are all stronger then the short songs from Meddle. 7010 TPS Printed and made by Garrod & Lofthouse Ltd. "If" is memorable as Water's first "list song" and includes possibly his first references to insanity : "If I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain", and "Fat Old Sun" is a beautiful sleepy Guilour effort. While none of them can be described as "high impact" songs, all three have a haunting simplicity and the best lyrics up to that point. Side 2 of the lp consists of three songs, "If", "Summer of '67" and "Fat old Sun" written by Waters, Wright and Guilmour respectively. The musical themes themselves are both noble and grand in nature and the Suite is, quite simply an astonishing piece of music which is comparable to such modern classics as Holst's "The Planets". Whereas Echoes was built largely on the quality and texture of sound itself, beginning with that repeated and distorted keyboard note, AHM is based on musical themes which are repeated and developed in the classical style throughout the piece. Apart from its length and the fact that it is largely instrumental, it bears little resemblance to "Echoes" from the "Meddle" album. The album opener, "Atom Heart Mother Suite" (side 1 of the lp) is a 23 minute epic. This is largely due to the influence of Ron Geesin who co-wrote the title track and the use of brass instruments and a choir to add texture and colour to the sound. Something of an enigma among their work, this is the one Floyd album which doesn't have the trade mark "Pink Floyd Sound" be it the cosmic / nursery rhyme feel of the Syd Barrett era or the tight, lyrics dominated Roger Waters era. Atom Heart Mother Album Review By James Caulfield"Atom Heart Mother" - best album title and containing the best song title ever : "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast"!
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