Review Summary: The third and last incursion of the band in soundtracks after More and Zabriskie Point.
“Obscured By Clouds” is the seventh studio album of Pink Floyd that was released in 1972. The line up on the album is David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Roger Waters and Nick Mason. The album had the participation of the Mapuga tribe too.
“Obscured By Clouds” is the second soundtrack work of Pink Floyd. The first one is “More” that was released in 1969. The album was based on the soundtrack of the French film “La Vallée” or “The Valley”. This happened because some copies of the album refer the film with its English title. As I refered above, “Obscured By Clouds” might appear to tread an old ground for many people, as Pink Floyd returns to a song writing template that went as far back as their previous work “More”. That fact is enough to cement this album’s status as one of the black sheeps in the Pink Floyd’s catalog. It’s also understandably overshadowed by the masterpieces that precede and follow it, “Meddle” and the following trilogy. Nevertheless, as a collection of songs, “Obscured By Clouds” is bit a better then their earlier soundtrack work.
“La Vallée” is a French film of 1972 written and released by the Franco-Swiss film director and producer Barbet Schroeder. The star of the film is the French actress Bulle Ogier who plays the role of Viviane. Viviane is the wife of the French consul in Melbourne, who joins to a group of explorers on a strange and accidental voyage in search of a mysterious hidden valley in the jungle of Papua New Guinea, where she hopes to find the feathers of a very rare exotic bird. Along the journey they make contact with the Mapuga tribe, one of the most isolated groups of human beings on earth. This encounter inspired them to explore their own humanity, free from their own ideas about the civilization. The end of the film is when they arrive into the valley. This is one of the many typical lyrical and idealistic films of the 70’s in the search of happiness and their own humanity. In this case, their search becomes the search of the paradise itself.
Pink Floyd’s third soundtrack music project, after “More” and the few pieces from “Zabriskie Point”, was recorded on a “summer vacation” in France, within a week, so to speak, without any great studio tinkering and gimmicks. So, one can notice that this is an album recorded in a very fairly short time without much effort but in a positive way. Here you can experience the band “pure” again, without a huge arsenal of electronic effects and gimmicks, and that in rather short and compact songs where some of them are powerful rock numbers. The album offers relatively short, but quite relaxed and sometimes very rocky songs, with the typical Pink Floyd’s ingredients of non-singing, beautiful organ runs and grandiose guitar interjections. If you like the shorter tracks on “Atom Heart Mother” and “Meddle”, you’ll like this album too. For the band’s drummer Mason, “Obscured by Clouds” is one of his favorite Pink Floyd’s albums because it simply shows the interaction of the band and not the otherwise apparently usual tinkering of the band’s members in the studio.
“Obscured By Clouds” has ten tracks. The title trak and “When You’re In” are two instrumentals linked as only one song. They sound like integrated music. Both are great and represent a nice opener. They explore great keyboard and guitar works well supported by dynamic drums. “Burning Bridges” is a mellow beautiful song. It consists of an organ melody with nice space guitar solos and a vocal line calm and harmonic. “The Gold It’s In The …” is different from the previous songs. This is an interesting rock song well played. “Wot’s…Uh The Deal?” is a beautiful, soft and melodious ballad. It calms us when we’re lying down on a comfortable sofa listening to it. “Mud Men” is a beautiful instrumental song with a bit similar tune to “Burning Bridges”. It has a catchy melody with beautiful piano, organ and guitar works. “Childhood’s End” is an interesting happy song with good composition. “Free Four” is a good ballad with pleasant acoustic guitar sound and a good rhythm section. It reminds me the music of The Beatles. “Stay” is an atmospheric soft ballad. The instrumentation is mostly piano, bass guitar and some guitar solos with a wah-wah pedal. “Absolutely Curtains” is another instrumental and space song that almost closes the album. The last part of the track is a chant made by the Mapuga tribe, recorded from “La Vallée”. That can remind us that “Obscured By Clouds” is a soundtrack.
Conclusion: Unlike many of you that haven’t seen “La Vallée”, I saw it, at that time. Despite have been passed more than fifty years, I still have in my memory some scenes of the film. However, here I’m reviewing the album and not the soundtrack. “Obscured By Clouds” has an interesting set of songs. But, when I listen to the album, I have the feeling that this is an album put out of place. It seems that it was moved out of the chronological order of Pink Floyd’s official discography. It seems to me an album that should have been released after “More” or “Ummagumma” and not after “Meddle”. Its music is closer to the psychedelic period and not to the space music of “Meddle”. But, this is certainly due to the fact this is a soundtrack work in the same line of “More”. But what really matters is this is a good and pleasant album of Pink Floyd, an unusual album of the band but with some highlights if you like Pink Floyd’s music.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
