Obscured by Clouds

Obscured by Clouds
Soundtrack to La Vallée by Pink Floyd
Released	3 June 1972
Recorded	23–29 February and 23–27 March 1972, Château d'Hérouville, Hérouville, Île-de-France, France
Genre	Progressive rock
Length	40:30
Language	English
Label	Harvest/EMI
Producer	Pink Floyd
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Robert Christgau (C) link George Starostin (12/15) link
Pink Floyd chronology
Meddle (1971) Obscured by Clouds (1972) The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
Singles from Obscured by Clouds
"Free Four" Released: 3 June 1972
Pink Floyd soundtracks chronology
Zabriskie Point (1970) Obscured by Clouds (1972) Atom Heart Mother (1992)

Obscured by Clouds is a rock album by Pink Floyd based on their soundtrack for the French film La Vallée, by Barbet Schroeder. Some copies of the album refer to the film by its alternate English title, The Valley. The LP was released in the United Kingdom on 3 June 1972, on Harvest/EMI and then in the United States on 15 June 1972, on Harvest/Capitol. The album reached #6 on the UK album charts^[1] and #46^{[citation needed]} on the U.S. album charts (where it was certified Gold by the RIAA in March 1994).^{[citation needed]} In 1986, the album was released on CD. A digitally remastered CD was released in March 1996 in the UK and August 1996 in the U.S.^{[citation needed]}

Overview

At this point in their career, the band were not new to scoring movies. They had already scored the films More and Zabriskie Point in 1969 and 1970 respectively. So when the band went in to score the movie, they had a lot more experience and therefore produced a much finer product.

The band were already working on The Dark Side of the Moon during this period, but production was interrupted when the band travelled to France to score the movie. Nick Mason refers to the project:

"After the success of More, we had agreed to do another sound track for Barbet Schroeder. His new film was called La Vallée and we travelled over to France to record the music in the last week of February... We did the recording with the same method we had employed for More, following a rough cut of the film, using stopwatches for specific cues and creating interlinking musical moods that would be cross-faded to suit the final version... The recording time was extremely tight. We only had two weeks to record the soundtrack with a short amount of time afterwards to turn it into an album."^[2]

While recording the music, the band were free to use "standard rock song construction" to their advantage, and such was the case for "Obscured by Clouds". The title track featured an early use of electronic drums, or "electric bongos" as Mason calls them. Rick Wright foreshadows what is to come later with his use of synthesisers on this album. A droning note (played on an EMS VCS3 synthesiser) begins the album. This song was often used to open their live shows in the following years. The band also used themes to their advantage. The melody played in "Burning Bridges" is echoed later in "Mudmen". The song "Childhood's End" is said to have been inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's novel of the same name.

"Free Four" was the first Pink Floyd song to get significant airplay in the U.S., and the first to deal directly with the death of Eric Fletcher Waters, Roger Waters's father.

In an snippet of interview footage that appeared in the 1974 theatrical version (later released on VHS and Laserdisc) and subsiquent "Director's Cut DVD" versions of Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii, Roger Waters stated that early pressings of the album contained excessive sibilants in the vocal tracks, a problem that was corrected in later pressings.

Obscured by Clouds was the first Pink Floyd album to feature the VCS 3 synthesiser.^{[citation needed]}

Live performances

Pink Floyd opened some shows in 1973 with an extended jam based on the pairing of "Obscured by Clouds" and "When You're In", accompanied by smoke and a light show.

"Childhood's End" is the only other song from the soundtrack to find its way to the stage. It made several appearances in Europe starting on December 1 1972 and at the start of the band's March 1973 tour of North America, usually with an extended instrumental passage.

"Wot's... Uh, the Deal?" saw revival as part of David Gilmour's set list during his 2006 solo tour. One of these performances features on Gilmour's 2007 DVD Remember That Night and also the vinyl version of his 2008 live album Live in Gdańsk.

Track listing

Singles

• "Free Four"/"Stay" (1972, U.S. only release)
• "Free Four"/"The Gold It's in the..." (1972, Italy only release)
• "Burning Bridges"/"Childhood's End" (1972, some states on release)

Personnel

Pink Floyd

• David Gilmour – guitars, vocals, VCS3
• Nick Mason – drums, percussion
• Roger Waters – bass guitar, vocals, VCS3
• Richard Wright – keyboards, vocals, VCS3

Additional personnel

• Hipgnosis – cover

Sales chart performance

References

1. ^ UK Chart Stats
2. ^ Mason Nick; Inside Out: A personal History of Pink Floyd
3. ^ "Chart Stats - Pink Floyd - Obscured By The Clouds". www.chartstats.com. http://www.chartstats.com/albuminfo.php?id=3074. Retrieved 2009-07-02. 
4. ^ allmusic ((( Pink Floyd > Charts & Awards > Billboard Albums )))

External links

• Album trivia, quotes and more