Pink Floyd - Relics

"Relics" was my introduction to Pink Floyd. My brother had the album and it was the only one he left behind when he moved out. It seemed to be an odd record for him to have in his collection, as he was into David Bowie and Roxy Music, having previously been into reggae and soul artists such as Desmond Dekker and Wilson Pickett. He may have bought it because it was a budget album, being sold at a fraction of the price of normal albums !

The only song I knew was "See Emily Play", as a cover version was on Bowie's "Pin-Ups" album, and it had been a hit single for Floyd that still sometimes got played on the radio. It was only as I made my way through the Floyd back catelogue that I learned which tracks in this compliation were singles, B-sides, album tracks or unreleased. I liked the album but it hardly prepared me for Dark Side Of The Moon !

Looking at the track listing now, the only song I couldn't remember was "Paintbox".

"Arnold Layne" was Floyd's first single. Written and sung by Syd Barrett it tells the tale of a man who had a strange hobby of collecting ladies underwear from clothes lines before getting nicked. Being a subject not usually mentioned in polite society, it was considered too extreme even for some pirate radio stations. All of which undoubtedly failed to help its sales or chart position. It was a topic revisited 12 years later by Madness with their song "In The Middle Of The Night" on their debut album

"Interstellar Overdrive"is a nine minutes long instrumental from "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" album. It has a memorable riff before meandering off into free form jamming. It has featured in a couple of episodes of "Heartbeat", usually when there is a car chase !

"See Emily Play" was the second single and is a great pop song with a psychedelic edge, whereas Bowie's version gave it a Glam-Rock treatment, with bovver-boys backing vocals similar to those on "The Bewley Boys" on "Hunky Dory". Bowie also gave the song a long instrumental outro which back in the 1970s I thought he was paying tribute to the outro in "Bike". However, listening again recently, it seemed to be instead the sort of Beatles/Orchestral strings crossover Oasis might have recorded. 

"Remember A Day" was an album track on "A Saucerful Of Secrets". Written and sung by Richard Wright, it has a dreamy feel to it. Syd Barrett contributed on slide guitar but the ivory playing dominates, although the pounding drums are significant.

"Paintbox" is another song written and sung by Richard Wright, and was the B-side to the "Apples and Oranges" single which failed to chart. It's similiar in tone to Wright's "Remember A Day" and "Summer of '68", and again Nick Mason's drumming catches the ear.

"Julia Dream" opens side two  and was the B-side to "It Would Be So Nice", another chart flop. It perhaps would have been a better choice as the single, being a beautiful, soft dream like song with a great vocal from David Gilmour and mellotron from Wright.

The studio version of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" is the B-side to the "Point Me At The Sky" single, although many critics state that the live version on "Ummagumma" is far superior. This version, whilst still nearly 6 minutes long, is 3 minutes shorter than the live version.

"Cirrus Minor" and "The Nile Song" were on "The Soundtrack From More". "Cirrus Minor" has birds tweeting for nearly a minute for the intro, before a gentle acoustic guitar and psychedelic organ come in. The slow and dreamy pastoral ballad finishes with a lengthy choral organ outro very similar to the final section of "A Saucerful Of Secrets". The track doesn't have any drumming or percussion,

"The Nile Song" comes as a bit of a shock as Floyd do their best Black Sabbath heavy metal impression, and if it had been released 20 years later it might have been called grunge ! There is an insane guitar solo and manic drumming. Gilmour’s gruff vocal is very much in contrast to some of his tender singing on other Floyd tracks. You would never guess this was Pink Floyd.

"Biding My Time" was previously unreleased. Written and sung by Roger Walters, it begins as a soft blues shuffle before moving into a Jazz break where Richard Wright plays the Trombone. The guitar solo  could come from "Dark Side" despite being recorded in 1969.

"Bike" was on "A Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" and is a whimsical song about Syd's bike, his old coat, a mouse named Gerald, gingerbread men and room of musical tunes. It finishes with about a minute and a half of weird clockwork sounds and  music box noises, before the sounds of squawking geese to finish.

In conclusion, there is some good stuff on "Relics", but it probably now only for dedicated Floyd fans. However, at the time of its release, it was the only LP to contain 6 of the songs.

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. Arnold Layne
2. Interstellar Overdrive
3. See Emily Play
4. Remember A Day
5. Paint Box

Side Two :

1. Julia Dream
2. Careful With That Axe, Eugene
3. Cirrus Minor
4. The Nile Song
5. Biding My Time
6. Bike

Released 1971
UK Chart Position : 32

Singles :

Arnold Layne ( No 20 - 1967 )
See Emily Play ( No 6 - 1967 )

 

Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother

 

"Atom Heart Mother" is one of those albums that I really liked when I first heard it in the mid 1970s, but I went off it over time. It would be interesting to see how it sounded after a gap of around 45 years.........

The title apparently came from a tabloid headline reporting on a women being given a pacemaker, and the band thought it would make a good song title. The album's front cover was strikingly different from others at the time, being just a solitary cow in a field, with no mention of the band or the title. More cows graced the back cover and the inside sleeve.

There are five tracks on the album, The instrumental title track spans Side One, weighing in at nearly 24 minutes and in 6 parts. Arranged by Ron Geesin, it is dominated by strings and brass, and the John Alldis Choir. Floyd are reduced to virtually being the backing band !

Side Two has a song each from Roger Waters, Rick Wright and David Gilmour, before closing with a 13 minute three-part instrumental.

"Atom Heart Mother" starts with "Father's Shout", beginning with trumpets and trombones before the drums come in for the main theme. There are also the sounds of horses, gunfire, bombs and motorbikes.

"Breast Milky", the second part, begins with a bass line and keyboards before aching cello, then come some drums before a dreamy slide guitar line, which always reminded of me as belonging in a Western. The section ends with a rising guitar line leading to the choir joining in.

Part three, "Mother Fore", commences with slow organ accompanied by one high pitched voice. Gradually more voices join, and male voices enter before the crescendo, which includes some drumming. It is essentially a choral version of part 2.

Part 4 features some funky organ and drums then some spaced out guitar which has shades of parts of the still to come "Shine On Your Crazy Diamond". Tribal/Japanese type signing comes in towards the end, building towards a soaring finish, with the brass coming back in with the theme from Part One. This section is perhaps appropriately named "Funky Dung".

"Mind Your Throats Please" is part 5, with pulsating keyboards then what sounds almost like an underground train, then an emergency ambulance or fire engine, then the train again. It's all intended to imitate the action of swallowing.

The track closes with "Remergence", with a gentle return of part one leading into a reprise of the cello/violins melodies and guitar refrain from Part Two, before finishing with a reprise of the Part Three choir lines. The finish is a big fluorish, the type that is used in films when intrepid space explorers land on a new planet or discover a lost world.

Roger Waters' folk song "If" opens Side Two. It has a gentle classical guitar and vocal, which lyrically at times hints at what was to come with "Brain Damage on "Dark Side of The Moon" ie "If I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain". It moves on to a  soothing guitar solo accompanied by the organ, before piano is played under the next verse. A lyrical piano break is introduced before the final verse. 

Rick Wright's "Summer Of '68" follows and is a song about a one-night stand with a groupie. It begins with some pretty piano, before an almost Beatles Sgt Pepper like chorus "How do you feel ? Ba ba ba". A trumpet solo increases the pace for the second verse, after which the full brass section join in. The pace dramatically changes with strummed guitar and then piano for the coda, before the brass return for the finale.

David Gilmour's "Fat Old Sun" is a pastoral song conjuring up a country idyll image. Starting with church bells in the distance. it has a slow, strummed acoustic guitar and vocal. Pedal steel guitars and a mandolin feature later on in the song, and there is trademark Gilmour electric guitar solo to finish "And if you see, don't make a sound, pick your feet up off the ground. And if you hear as the warm night falls, the silver sound from a time so strange. Sing to me, sing to me".

"Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" an instrumental in three parts, with voices from roadie Alan. Part One, "Rise And Shine" sounds nothing like the song of the same name by The Cardigans, and has a dripping tap to start, a door closing, sounds of opening and closing cupboards and draws as Alan talks about breakfast items he likes, "marmalade, I like marmalade". There's sounds of trying to light a match to start cooking before we finally get some music, a jaunty piano, sympathetic guitar, and happy fairground style Hammond organ.

The voice returns at the start of the second part, "Sunny Side Up", before more kitchen sounds, putting some cereals into a bowl, then pouring milk on them. Acoustic guitar plays over the sound of the cereals being eaten and Alan almost choking on them, leading into a yearning electric guitar and organ under the acoustic guitar.

Part Three, "Morning Glory", has the sounds of a fry-up cooking and the roadie's voice again. It's mainly mid-paced piano and organ, with some drums, before the guitar comes in to bring the track to an uplifting, almost grand conclusion, with the organ creating the image of the sun coming out. The track closes with sounds of washing up before ending with the dripping tap.

Listening again to "Atom Heart Mother" I was pleasantly surprised by how good it sounded now. I enjoyed all of Side Two, and most of the title track, although the "Mind Your Throats Please" section was a low point, and "Funky Dung" was fairly average, but the other parts were nice to hear again.

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. Atom Heart Mother

Side Two :

1. If
2. Summer '68
3. Fat Old Sun
4. Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast

Released : 1970
UK Chart Position : 1

Pink Floyd - Ummagumma

 

The double album "Ummagumma" was a huge disappointment when I bought it. I thought the live album was pretty decent, although I was already familiar with "Careful With That Axe Eugene" as it was on the "Relics" compilation album, whilst the two songs on Side Two were on "A Saucerful of Secrets". "Astronomy Domine" was new to me though, as at the time I was still to acquire "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn", and I quite liked the version here.

Although there is nearly 40 minutes of live music, it is only four tracks, with extended instrumentation to extend the timings compared to the studio versions. It might have been nice to have included a couple of short songs for a bit of variety.

Whilst it might sound like a good idea to give each band member half a side to come up with something of their own, it merely proved that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The word experimental can be used to describe large chunks of it, although pretentious crap also fits. It seems the band had been given a sounds effects machine and they were determined to overuse it.

The best thing about "Ummagumma" is its cover, which I now know features a Droste effect, where in the picture on the wall, the band members keep change places.

Listening again to "Ummagumma" after a gap of at least 45 years, my opinion hasn't changed.

Side One opens with Syd Barrett's "Astronomy Domine" at double the length of the original, with a lengthy keyboard solo repeating the main riff. It is still the best track on the album.

"Careful With That Axe, Eugene" has gentle cymbals to start with, then a soft psychedelic organ. The pace changes around the three minute mark with the spoken line of the title, screams and bass and guitar kick in and the drumming gets a lot heavier. It was nice to hear it again.

The version of "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" is double the length of the album version, with the drumming much more to the fore and the vocal barely a whisper. There are some weird noises in the middle section, before the bass riff returns.

I didn't really like the studio version "A Saucerful Of Secrets" but part 4 here is much improved with some elegant organ and supporting drumming building to the crescendo, where just Gilmour's voice replaces the choir on the studio version.

Richard Wright's contribution is "Sysyphus", at nearly 14 minutes long, and in four parts is mostly pretentious rubbish. Sisyphus is a character from Greek mythology whom the gods forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down every time it neared the top, repeating this action for eternity. Part 1 is a short piece with mellotron and drums and is vaguely menacing. Part 2 begins with  almost pleasant piano a la a Chopin sonata, but becomes just a pounding of the keys as if a small child had been let loose on the keyboard and is unlistenable. Part 3 consists of piano and noises similar to "Several Species Of Small Fury Animals ( see below ), whilst Part 4 has a slow, spacy mellotron with a hint of "Silent Night", leading into the last four minutes of tuneless noise, until finishing with a reprise of the motif from Part 1.

Roger Waters' "Grantchester Meadows" is actually a song !  It is over 7 minutes long, with birdsong for a lengthy intro before becoming a gentle pastoral piece, with just voice and acoustic guitar. I keep thinking that the tender acoustic guitar solo will become Rod Stewart's "Gasoline Alley", but it doesn't, and instead there is the sound of a swan honking and then taking off from the water. The track finished finishes with the sound of a bee, then some footsteps, before the bee is swatted. 

Waters' second contribution is "Several Species Of Small Fury Animals". At 5 minutes long it is not music, just noise and is simply dreadful. It ends with some jibberish in a Scottish accent. Great title, dreadful track.

Side Four begins with David Gilmour's "The Narrow Way", which is in three parts. Part One is a listenable acoustic guitar piece until some slide guitar and noises spoil it near the end. Part 2 has a sinister guitar and a bass riff similar to "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" before becoming more unlistenable noise. Part 3 has some singing and a reasonable tune.

Coming from the drummer, Nick Mason's "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party"is predictably a waste of vinyl. A short flute intro is harmless enough but the second part is percussion, tape effects and then a drum solo before a reprise of flutes for the exit. I'll be happy to never have to hear it again.......

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. Astronomy Domine
2. Careful With That Axe Eugene

Side Two :

1. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
2. A Saucerful Of Secrets

 

Side Three :

1. Sysyphus
2. Grantchester Meadows
3. Several Species Of Small Fury Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict

 

Side Four :

1. The Narrow Way
2. The Grand Vizier's Garden Party

 

Released 1969
UK Chart Position :5

 

Pink Floyd - Soundtrack From The Film More

 

Released in 1969, "The Soundtrack From The Film More" was the third album by Pink Floyd. "More" was a debut film from director Barbet Schroeder, and when I acquired the album in the mid 1970s the only thing I knew about Schroeder was that he had also been the director of the 1972 film "La Vallee", for which Floyd had also produced the soundtrack.

Schroeder went on to achieve wider recognition for being the director of "Single White Female" and had a cameo as the French President in the file "Mars Attacks".

The stars of "More" were Mimsi Farmer and Klaus Grunberg. I'd not heard of them at the time and still have no idea who they are, apart from Farmer was American and Grunberg was German.

I have not seen "More" and it is not something I have ever seen in the UK TV schedules, although I can now see it is on YouTube to watch if I want to.

Wikipedia reports that the film was in English and set in Ibiza and Paris, with the main theme being about heroin addiction and with the main character committing suicide at the end of the film by a drug overdose after discovering his lover had been cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend.

The album cover I have was from EMI Italiana SPA and lists the band as The Pink Floyd rather than just Pink Floyd.

Prior to buying the album I was aware of "Cirrus Minor" and "The Nile Song", as both songs were on the "Relics" compilation which I already had. At the time I thought "Green Is The Colour" and "Cymbaline" were fantastic songs  and showcased the growing maturity of Roger Waters' lyrics. However, I thought side two was mostly awful and was probably played it only a handful of times. Apart from the four songs mentioned above I had no recollection of any of the other tracks.

Dave Gilmour sings the lead vocal on all songs. "More" is the only album where this happens until Roger Waters left the band.

The album opens with "Cirrus Minor", with birds tweeting for nearly a minute for the intro, before a gentle acoustic guitar and psychedelic organ come in. The slow and dreamy pastoral ballad finishes with a lengthy choral organ outro very similar to the final section of "A Saucerful Of Secrets". The track doesn't have any drumming or percussion, and I have no what the song is about !

"The Nile Song" comes as a bit of a shock as Floyd do their best Black Sabbath heavy metal impression, and if it had been released 20 years later it might have been called grunge ! There is an insane guitar solo and manic drumming. Gilmour’s gruff vocal is very much in contrast to some of the tender singing on other tracks. You would never guess this was Pink Floyd.......

The mood reverts back to dreamy and pastoral with "The Crying Song" with the return of slow acoustic guitar and keyboards giving the song a lullaby feel, before a slide guitar outro. Floyd were ahead of Mott The Hoople as Gilmour sings “We roll and roll, help me roll away the stones"!

The instrumental "Up The Khyber" features drumming very similar to the second section of "A Saucerful Of Secrets" and some jazz piano as if a cat was walking across the keyboard, before some psychedelic organ. I can't say I like it very much.

"Green Is The Colour" is  beautiful song with a nice plucked acoustic guitar intro and tin whistle, not played particularly well by Nick Mason’s wife. Gilmour provides another tender vocal over Richard Wright's tinkling of the ivories, before a lovely piano dominated outro."Green is the colour of her kind, quickness of the eye deceives the mind. Envy is the bond between the hopeful and the damned".

The Carole King style piano again underpins the playing of "Cymbaline", which is the most sophisticated song on the album. I love the the lengthy organ outro. "Your manager and agent are both busy on the phone, selling coloured photographs to magazines back home".

Side one closes with "Party Sequence" an instrumental just over a minute long, being mostly a drum solo with the tin whistle making another appearance.

There is only one proper song on side two, with "Ibiza Bar" being virtually "Nile Song 2". The barely a minute long "A Spanish Piece" is quite interesting with flamenco style guitar and Gilmour speaking with a dreadful Spaghetti Western Mexican accent. "Pass The Tequilla, Manuel" and "Laugh at my lisp and I kill you !"

The best of the four remaining instrumentals is "Main Theme", with gongs/cymbals to begin with, then a psychedelic organ before a Kraftwerk style motif on organ. It was probably a decade ahead of its time.

As it says on the tin, "More Blues" is a blues instrumental with just guitar and light drums, with the guitar lines hinting at the guitar to come in 1975 on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

"Dramatic Theme" is mostly forgettable psychedelic guitar whilst the dreadful seven minute long "Quicksilver" is mostly a repeat of the first part of "A Saucerful of Secrets".

The instrumentals on More are mostly filler, and whilst they are probably suitable as background noise to the drama in the film, most of them don't stand up on their own. The notable exception was "Main Theme" which surprised me by how good it sounds now. 

"Green Is The Colour" and "Cymbaline" remain important songs in the Pink Floyd back catalogue.

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. Cirrus Minor
2. The Nile Song
3. Crying Song
4. Up The Khyber
5. Green Is The Colour
6. Cymbaline
7. Party Sequence

Side Two :

1. Main Theme
2. Ibiza Bar
3. More Blues
4. Quicksilver
5. A Spanish Piece
6. Dramatic Theme

Released 1969
UK Chart Position : 9

Pink Floyd - A Saucerful Of Secrets

 

"A Saucerful Of Secrets" was the second album from Pink Floyd. As described in the review of "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn", I sold my copy after purchasing the double compilation album " A Nice Pair", which was cheaper than a single copy of Piper.

Whilst I quite liked the album, I thought it to be a mismash of styles, with Floyd clearly not knowing what direction to take after the departure of Syd Barrett, previously their main song-writer, singer and guitarist, and being replaced by David Gilmour.

The album had three lengthy tracks to re-enforce their space cadet credentials, two piano dominated melodic songs from keyboard player Richard Wright, a lightweight almost fun song from Roger Walters, and "Jugband Blues", the final contribution from Syd, which shone a bright light on his ongoing mental decay, and is by far and away the most interesting song on the album.

I had been aware of three of the tracks on the album prior to buying it. "Remember A Day" had been included on the "Relics" compiliation, whilst live versions of "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" and A Saucerful Of Secrets" were on "Ummagumma".

The album begins with "Let There Be More Light" which has a throbbing bass and swirling keyboards for the intro, before leading into a slow, repetitive verse sung by Wright, then Gilmour sings the rising refrain. The keyboards somehow remind me a little of Procol Harem and there is some psychedelic guitar for the lengthy outro. The lyrics seem to be about an alien spaceship landing at the Mildenhall Air Force Base in Suffolk but there is also a reference to The Beatles and LSD with line "Lucy In The Sky !". It sounded much better than I remembered.

"Remember A Day", written and sung by Richard Wright, has a dreamy feel to it. Syd Barrett contributes on the slide guitar but the ivory playing dominates, although the pounding drums are significant.

"Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" has a dominant bass riff, but there is also tribal drums, crashing cymbals and eerie keyboards.

The Beatles like "Corporal Clegg" closes side one and is sung by Nick Mason, with Gilmour and Wright signing the dreamy chorus. It is perhaps most notably for its Kazoo solo played by drummer Mason.

"A Saucerful Of Secrets" takes up most of side two, being a 12 minute long instrumental in four parts. The opening section reminds me of the music from the Clangers, the second section is basically a drum solo with some random poundings on a piano and distorted guitar sounds. The third part has some funeral style keyboards before moving into an uplifting organ piece with a choir singing a wordless chorus. Listening to it now it sounds a mess, and for me the final section is the only part worth listening to again. I always thought the live version was better, we will see if that is still the case when I get around to playing "Ummagumma" again !

"See-Saw" is dreamy piano ballad written and sung by Richard Wright, who also plays the organ, mellotron and xylophone. It does sound very 1960s but is another track that was better than I remembered.

The album finishes with "Jugband Blues". Despite his ongoing Schizophrenia, it shows that Barrett was aware that he was being forced out of the band. "It’s awfully considerate of you to think of me here, and I’m most obliged to you for making it clear that I’m not here". The song has a jaunty brass section before submerging into sounds of The Salvation Army playing as if they were marching in the street. The song powerfully ends with just a faintly strummed guitar and the vocal of "And the sea isn’t green, and I love the Queen. And what exactly is a dream? And what exactly is a joke?"

In summary, "A Saucerful Of Secrets" is a much better album than many people give credit to, although I could do away with the title track.

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. Let there Be More Light
2. Remember A Day
3. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
4. Corporal Clegg

Side One :

1. A Saucerful Of Secrets
2. See-Saw
3. Jugband Blues

Released 1968
UK Chart Position : 9