Artist.......: Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Album........: Atom Heart Mother
Label........: n/a
Genre........: Classical
Catnr........: n/a
Source.......: DVBS
Rip.date.....: 2013-04-27
Str.date.....: 2012-01-12
Quality......: 216kbps/48.0kHz/Joint Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
1. Concert pour les Bacheliers (ThΘΓtre du 26:55
ChΓtelet - Paris)
* Section I, Father's Shout
* Section II, Breast Milky
* Section III, Mother Fore
* Section IV, Funky Dung
* Section V, Mind Your Throats Please
* Section VI, Remergence
Runtime 26:55
Size 41.77
Release Notes:
Atom Heart Mother is the fifth studio album by English progressive rock band
Pink Floyd, released in 1970 by Harvest and EMI Records in the UK and Harvest
and Capitol in the US. It was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, England,
and was the band's first album to reach #1 in the UK, while it reached #55 in
the US chart, eventually going gold there. A remastered CD was released in 1994
in the UK and the US, and again in 2011. Ron Geesin, who had already influenced
and collaborated with Roger Waters, made a notable contribution to the album and
received a then rare outside songwriting credit.
This was the first Pink Floyd album to be specially mixed for 4-channel
quadraphonic sound as well as conventional 2-channel stereo. The SQ quadraphonic
mix was released on LP in a matrix format compatible with standard stereo record
players. There was also a release of the quadraphonic version in the UK in fully
discrete 4-channel form on the "Quad-8" format, a 4-channel variant of the
stereo 8-track tape cartridge.
The cover was, like earlier albums, designed by Hipgnosis, and was significant
in that it was the first one to not feature the band's name on the cover, or
contain any photographs of the band anywhere. This was a trend that would
continue on subsequent covers throughout the 1970s and beyond.
Although it was commercially and critically successful on release, the band,
particularly Waters and David Gilmour, have expressed several negative opinions
of the album in more recent years. Nevertheless, it remained popular enough for
Gilmour to perform the title track with Geesin in 2008.
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Pink Floyd's first side-long composition and their only full-length
collaboration with an outside composer (Scottish experimental composer Ron
Geesin, who had previously worked with Roger Waters on The Body and provided the
crazed monologue at the climax of Ummagumma's "Several Species of Small Furry
Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict"), "Atom Heart
Mother" was later largely disowned by both the band and Geesin. Apparently, the
group's small recording budget wasn't commensurate with their ambition, and even
after hiring a full orchestra and choir, they simply didn't have the studio time
or money to complete the piece to everyone's liking. Geesin has gone on record
as calling the completed "Atom Heart Mother" "a demo." If so, it may be the most
elaborate demo ever recorded: a nearly 24-minute instrumental that layers
traditional Floydian musical elements (particularly David Gilmour's slide guitar
and Rick Wright's organ) with challenging, occasionally atonal brass parts and a
large choir's wordless meditations. The general line on "Atom Heart Mother" is
that it "doesn't go anywhere," and in comparison to more stringently composed
long pieces like "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," that might be a fair cop. On its
own merits, however, "Atom Heart Mother" has a flowing, almost improvisational
feel that turns its piecemeal composition and recording into positive
attributes. Although the suite has six subtitles ("Father's Shout," "Breast
Milky," "Mother Fore," "Funky Dung," "Mind Your Throats Please," and
"Remergence"), there's little agreement about where the different sections begin
and end, suggesting a certain arbitrary quality to their titling and placement.
Is "Atom Heart Mother" a prog rock masterpiece for the ages? Not really, since
Pink Floyd would surpass it on side two of their next album, the equally
expansive "Echoes." But in comparison to similar efforts by the Moody Blues and
Deep Purple, "Atom Heart Mother" is certainly one of the best early
rock/symphonic crossovers.