Artist: PINK FLOYD
Album: OBSCURED BY CLOUDS REMASTERED (CD)

Release date: 1972/ 1996
Media type: CD

Obscured by Clouds is a rock album by Pink Floyd based on their soundtrack for the French film La Vallee, by Barbet Schroeder. The LP was released in the UK on June 3, 1972 on Harvest/EMI and then in the U.S. on June 15, 1972 on Harvest/Capitol. The album reached #6 on the UK album charts and #46 on the U.S. album charts (where it was certified Gold by the RIAA in March, 1994). 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.

At this point in their career, the band was 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 into score the movie, they had a lot more experience and therefore produced a much finer product.

The band was already working on 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 Valleй 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 afterwords to turn it into an album."[1]

While recording the music, the band was free to use "Standard rock song construction" to their advantage, and was such 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 synthesizers on this album. A droning note (played on an EMS VCS3 synthesizer) begins the album in pure Floyd style. 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 Wright's "Burning Bridges" is echoed later in "Mudmen" with David Gilmour's reconstruction of the song. Gilmour seemed to be the band's driving force behind this project. His lead guitar work is very prominent throughout the album, particularly on "The Gold It's in the..." which he sings himself. The song "Childhood's End" was credited only to Gilmour without his usual help from Roger Waters in the lyrical department, however Waters contributed the lyrics to all other songs. It is said to have been inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's novel of the same name, though this is not borne out by the lyrics.

Roger Waters only wrote one song by himself, "Free Four," but his minimal songwriting did not go un-noticed. "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' father.

In an interview that appeared in the "Director's Cut" edition 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.

TRACKLIST:

"Obscured by Clouds" (David Gilmour/Roger Waters) – 3:03
Instrumental

"When You're In" (David Gilmour/Roger Waters/Rick Wright/Nick Mason) – 2:30
Instrumental

"Burning Bridges" (Roger Waters/Rick Wright) – 3:29
Lead vocals: David Gilmour and Rick Wright

"The Gold It's in the..." (David Gilmour/Roger Waters) – 3:07
Lead vocals: David Gilmour

"Wot's... Uh the Deal" (David Gilmour/Roger Waters) – 5:08
Lead vocals: David Gilmour

"Mudmen" (David Gilmour/Rick Wright) – 4:20
Instrumental

"Childhood's End" (David Gilmour) – 4:31
Lead vocals: David Gilmour

"Free Four" (Roger Waters) – 4:15
Lead vocals: Roger Waters

"Stay" (Roger Waters/Rick Wright) – 4:05
Lead vocals: Rick Wright

"Absolutely Curtains" (David Gilmour/Roger Waters/Rick Wright/Nick Mason) – 5:52
Instrumental

LINE-UP:

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