Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother - Ultimate Critical Review (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?
Characters / Performances
Soundtrack
How does it compare to similar films?

Advantages:	Ground breaking, unique
Disadvantages:	not a good background music CD

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This Op, for some, will be a history lesson, for others pure nostalgia and yet for all I hope its enjoyable.

Cast your mind back, further, further, bit more! Stop! Here we are 1970…
Lets explore shall we.

• Ooo! Heathrow see’s its first landing of a Jumbo jet! A 747 Pan American/
• Betrand Russell (Philosopher) Dies at the ripe old age of 97!
• Trudy Sellick is the becomes the first teenager to cast a vote when the age of voting came down to 18
• West Germany beat England in the quarterfinals of the world cup in Mexico (no shock there then!)
• Conservatives win the Elections (David Heath – Prime Minister)
• TV Licence cost £6.10 shillings (£6.50 into days money)
• SS Great Britain returns to the UK from the Falklands and passes under the Clifton Suspension Bridge (Brunel designed both ship and bridge)
• UK’s first ‘Radha-Krishna Hindu Temple’ was built at Durning hall, Forest gate
• Prince Charles takes his seat in the House of Lords after leaving Cambridge with a 2:2
• The Beatles split after their film ‘let it be’
• Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix both pass away this year
• The millionth Ford Cortina is made for Export

Music wise we were listening to the sounds of: -
Edison Lighthouse (Where my Rosemary grows) – Lee Marvin (Wanderin’ Star) – Simon and Garfunkle (Bridge over troubled water) – Christie (Yellow River) – Mungo Jerry (in the summertime) – Jimi Hendrix (Voodoo Chile) – Dave Edmunds (I hear you knocking) And on and on this list could go on…

Oh yes!
And a baby boy is born; he is born in the lowest of low places. This special boy – who later grows to be a bringer of peace, love (currently working on universal harmony) was born at RAF Spittlegate (Lincolnshire) in a NAAFI bop (forces bar disco) in the ladies toilet. This little boy was in such a hurry to greet the world and bring about love, peace and harmony he decided to arrive 2 months early. Some say this boy was born to party.
Who is this boy I hear you ask – no I do! Ask it! Who is this boy?
Why, I’m glad you asked! That special little boy was me.

It is also the year an album appeared on the shelves of all good record shops…
The front sleeve pictures a cow in a field looking back at a phographer, there is no title there is no group name on the front – just the cow in a field I think it’s a happy cow – it ought to be its decorating the sleeve of one of the most underrated and amazing albums I’ve ever heard.

Pink Floyd are, at this time,
David Gilmour (guitar, vocals)
Richard Wright (keyboards, vocals)
Roger Waters (bass, vocals)
Nick Mason (drums)
Additional Musicians:
Ron Geesin (Orchestrations)
The John Aldiss Choir (vocals).
Pink Floyd have by this time come out with at least 2 albums worthy of noting, ‘Ummagumma’ and ‘the Piper at the gates of dawn’
Atom Heart Mother is a wonderfully engineered Album, bringing together, vocals, piano, keyboards, synthesisers, drums and lots more which will be explained as I go through the tracks! The album for me means a lot – it is a fantastic ‘listening to’ CD but crap ‘background music’ I love to listen to it quite loud in a darkened room with a few beers and let the music take me on its journey, and what a journey it is, it takes me through the sad paces (if I’m melancholy – oh god! I’m using hippy words!!) I even tear up a bit. It takes me to the happy places and it even takes you through the places that leave you baffled and thinking “what the Fuzz?”
Some tracks are instrumental but with voices, no lyrics, others have very odd but amazing lyrics. People have accused Pink Floyd of being druggies, and I can see why, but I have it on good authority that they weren’t, well, no more than anyone else.
Let me take you through the tracks and explain a bit about each one:
-----------------------------------
Atom Heart Mother (Mason, Gilmour, Waters, Wright, Geesin) 23:45
Sub headed into the following:
a. Father's Shout
b. Breast Milky
c. Mother Fore
d. Funky Dung
e. Mind Your Throats, Please
f. Remergence

This is an instrumental piece, but with sub headings and as you see – very oddly named, oh I’d have loved to have been at the meeting when they came up with these names. This track is over 23 mins long and takes you along a roller coaster of emotions, they throw everything in their musical arsenal at you, and sample noises such as bombs and battle, chat generally anything, its masterfully pieced together, instruments blended in such as drums, French horns and a motorbike, it all works really well (What? – Yes I did say motorbike – yes, 2 wheels Brumm, Brumm!) This 23 min journey is wonderful and I would have bought the CD just for this alone! But wait! There’s more!
--------------------------------------
If (Waters) 4:31
If I were a swan, I'd be gone.
If I were a train, I'd be late.
And if I were a good man,
I'd talk with you
more often than I do.

If I were to sleep, I could dream.
If I were afraid, I could hide.
If I go insane, please don't put
your wires in my brain.

If I were the moon, I'd be cool.
If I were a book, I would bend for you.
If I were a good man, I'd understand
the spaces between friends.

If I were alone, I would cry.
And if I were with you, I'd be home and dry.
And if I go insane,
and they lock me away,
Will you still let me join in the game?

If I were a swan, I'd be gone.
If I were a train, I'd be late again.
If I were a good man,
I'd talk with you
more often than I do.

This is a very simple track, very pure- almost a lullaby. Once you have caught the tune you find yourself humming along to it, if you can sing you’d possibly sing along – I’m not that good a singer so I don’t bother, why spoil an superb song by warbling along!

------------------------------
Summer '68 (Wright) 5:28

Would you like to say something before you leave
Perhaps you'd care to state exactly how you feel
We said good-bye before we said hello
I hardly even like you, I shouldn't care at all
We met just six hours ago, the music was too loud
From your bed I gained a day and lost a bloody year
And I would like to know
How do you feel, how do you feel, how do you feel?

Not a single word was said, delights still without fears
Occasionally you showed a smile but what was the need
I felt the cold far too soon - the wind of '95
My friends are lying in the sun, I wish that I was there
Tomorrow brings another town and another girl like you
Have you time before you leave to greet another man
Just you let me know
How do you feel, how do you feel, how do you feel?

Good-bye to you
Charlotte Kringles too
I've had enough for one day.
Not only great lyrics here but a tune that’s winding around your emotions, dragging you along with it, mournful to happy, and with French horn and trumpet meddlies that will you whistling along and doing that toe tapping conducting thing people do with their feet that we all do (we do don’t we? It’s not just me is it? Oh! OK).

----------------------------------------

Fat Old Sun (Gilmour) 5:23

When the fat old sun in the sky is falling
Summer evenin' birds are calling
Summer's thunder time of year
The sound of music in my ears
Distant bells, new mown grass
Smells so sweet
By the river holding hands
Roll me up and lay me down
And if you sit 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
When that fat old sun in the sky is falling
Summer evenin' birds are calling
Children's laughter in my ears
The last sunlight disappears
And if you sit 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
When that fat old sun in the sky is falling

Again, another lullaby type song, with a haunting tune to it, this song has a measured pace to it all the way through, I don’t like this tune as much as the rest, it’s not as stimulating as the rest, don’t get me wrong it’s a good song, but one that could have been made by any band.

-----------------------------------

Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast (Waters, Mason, Gilmour, Wright) 13:01
Sub headed
(a) Rise and shine
(b) Sunny side up
(c) Morning glory

Instrumental.

Now this is a weird one! The guy we hear pottering around a kitchen is supposed to be Alan, a roadie with the band, as he’s mooching about the kitchen preparing his breakfast, he’s talking to himself (well muttering) its very, very weird but you cant help but listen, music hauntingly sweet, fades in and out and we are treated to the sounds of Alan gulping drinks, eating rice crispies and crunching on toast, now this all sounds really strange, and it is but it works and it works well, who thought that listening to this guy mutter and fry bacon and eggs could actually be classed as music! When the last piece of music comes in ‘morning glory’ my god! You can see where Pink Floyd will be in a few short years! Up there, so far up the charts and so firmly hammered in to the fabric of British sound, nature herself would be unable to remove them. The last piece has the beginning overtones that you will feel immediately (if you are a PF fan) you feel the sound that will become the Smash, Dark side of the moon.

This album certainly isn’t going to cater for everyone’s taste, its psychedelic; its sound is still bedded in the 60’s but its still, in its own right ground breaking, no! More than that it’s a full on construction crew hell bent on changing that flat unsightly piece of waste ground into some beautiful piece of property deigned by an artist who knows what’s best for the future.

Even if you just listened to this CD or Vinyl you’d understand that for decades after, bands the world over have sat up, listened, threw away their old textbooks and decided to Really, Really experiment.

In this day and age where if, sadly, Pete Townsend or Simon Cowell doesn’t like the sound, then we don’t get to hear it! It’s refreshing to listen to something, from an era where experimentation, expression and god damn rule-breaking put the UK on top of the world and firmly back on the map.
Or you could just go listen to Busted…

If you got this far, thank you very much for reading. I really did enjoy writing this (again)