June 2, 1972 - Obscured By Clouds

A little over 6 months after "Meddle", Pink Floyd released their seventh album "Obscured By Clouds" on June 2, 1972. Barbet Schroeder, the director of the film "More" for which Pink Floyd did the Soundtrack, asked if Pink Floyd would do the music for his next film "La Vallée". They had already begun work on what would become their eighth album, but they stopped in France either side of a Japanese tour to write and record music for the film. It's lyrics focus more on love than Floyd are used to, as it was a central theme in the film, and also features lots of acoustic guitar. Since their last album Rick Wright purchased a VCS 3 (a portable analog synthesizer) which is used on a few songs. Let's check it out!

Side one begins with the title track, "Obscured By Clouds" which has Wright playing VCS 3 which makes the drone-y noise. Gilmour plays a simple guitar riff and this leads right into another instrumental song "When You're In". A catchy rock riff carries the song and there's some nice drumming by Nick Mason throughout. Track 3 is titled "Burning Bridges" and is led by a slow organ riff. It has Gilmour on vocals first, then Wright, then both of them. Gilmour plays a couple slow guitar solos as well in this one. The next track is "The Gold It's In The...", where is it?! It's got some great singing by Gilmour and a cool guitar riff as well. Gilmour's guitar is all over this album so far with a pretty sweet guitar solo in this one that just keeps jammin'! Track 5 is "Wot's...Uh The Deal?", an odd song name indeed. Gilmour plays a slow but pretty cool acoustic riff to lead and sings great as usual. Wright plays a slow piano solo, and a guitar solo follows. Nothing really jumps out, but it's still a solid song that I like. The final song on side one is another instrumental called "Mudmen".
Wright opens it with a slow piano riff and he is soon playing organ and electric piano as well for a very cool effect. A really epic-sounding guitar takes the lead that sounds awesome and there's also a trippy part with guitar and more VCS 3 by Wright. More epic guitar finishes out the side as this Soundtrack has a couple nice jams so far!

Side two begins with "Childhood's End" and has a long drone-y opening. After a minute it becomes a more typical rock song. Gilmour's voice is so good as he continues to shine on this album with another guitar solo. The next song "Free Four" is written and sung by Roger Waters. His voice fits the song well and it's led by a catchy acoustic riff. Another short guitar solo is pretty good and Gilmour says some more cool guitar as the song fades out. Track 9 is titled "Stay" and is a love song sung by Wright.
He plays some beautiful piano Ron carry the song and there's some cool trippy guitar by Gilmour. Wright's singing isn't bad on this song, but Gilmour is my preferred singer for the band. The final song on the album is called "Absolutely Curtains" and has more droning noises by the VCS 3. Trippy organ by Wright makes for a psychedelic first half, but the second half of the song features the Mapuga Tribe (they were in the film as well) singing a chant. A very weird song even by Pink Floyd's standards and certainly an odd way to end what was a pretty decent Soundtrack.

That is the end of "Obscured By Clouds" and it was a pretty good album for a film Soundtrack, as was their previous one "More". I think I liked this one a little more than "More" but it's pretty close. I don't think it was better than "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" but it isn't surprising that the two film Soundtracks would be their two lowest efforts, as the ideas aren't purely conceived by Pink Floyd. They had a structure to follow, and couldn't just make long progressive songs that Floyd are best at. So while I believe this to be their sixth best album out of seven, neither of these film Soundtracks are bad records, just not as good as the typical Pink Floyd process.