ATOM HEART MOTHER

Review #500 for Prog Archives needed a special subject that allows discussion of the sweet and the melancholy of life, of music as metaphor for appreciating simple moments long gone (as a good friend here and I discussed recently) and as the catalyst for change. I'd like to try to make the case that this album is very strong, under-appreciated, and in my view a more solid progressive work than the acclaimed Meddle or the wild Ummagumma, its two closest siblings. A challenge to Meddle is unthinkable to some but to a few of us, it's not even close.

Floyd started off with the masterpiece Piper and after Barrett left the group proceeded to wallow for a few years in search of their way. Barrett was the man, the only able songwriter, the sound revolutionary, the charismatic jester that brought fans to Pink Floyd and the spark that enabled them to ever be discovered. The others owe their careers to Barrett. I'm not slamming Saucerful, More, or Ummagumma as all three have some very fine moments. But by their own admission the band were somewhat adrift in these years, learning to compose and getting understandably tired of playing Barrett's material. In 1970 the band left some notes and ideas with Ron Geesin as they took off for some American dates. He was left with only a backing demo and sketchy info and asked to pull some arrangements together for when the band returned. The group returned and things soon turned to panic as the material remained in some disarray even as recording needed to continue. The orchestral musicians were not seeing eye to eye with Geesin to put it mildly. After an admirable attempt and a near physical altercation with a mouthy horn player he was replaced by John Aldiss. With the working title of "The Amazing Pudding" the track began to take shape. The ideas and the music were very interesting though the album would ultimately suffer from being an extremely rushed affair which led to less than desirable recording and production. The band would comment later that they could have done much better with more time and at one point considered re-recording it. Mason notes that poorly positioned microphones picked up some monitor sound and that this will not be able to be repaired. But the remastered version sounds good enough not to distract the listener from the joy of the music. In fact to me the album's sound warts actually add a certain swampiness that adds more than it detracts as it works with the feel of the composition. It was well received by the many critics, one reviewer of the time calling it "the most successful integration of rock and formal music I've heard." Geesin's work here was superb and should be recognized, giving shape and a bold statement to this unique Floyd exploration. The band was still trying some radical things at this point which should be something to admire.

Some latter day reviewers have noted that Waters and Gilmour belittled these early classics years later but let's look at what they felt about the album *then* when it was fresh to them. The fact is they knew these were great albums when they created them. Whose judgment of quality prog do you trust more, current day Waters/Gilmour egos or the boys at the time when they were creating their musical legacy? While I understand they might feel a little funny as older men discussing something they did as kids, for what I'm looking for out of music, I concur with the comments they made at the time:

"This one is much simpler to listen to. It's more emotional, a sort of epic music in fact, because we have added brass and a choir." [Richard Wright, Melody Maker 9/70] ".much nicer to listen to. I think it's by far the best, the most human thing we've done." [Roger Waters, Sounds 1970] ".the faults are basically in details and I thought, overall, it was good. It has a very strange feel to it. Parts of it, like the ending, are real ham, which I like." [Nick Mason, Sounds 1/71]

I suppose once you've created an album like "Dark Side of the Moon" it is perhaps easy to look back at something more naïve and experimental and proclaim it silly or somehow beneath your current status. What these guys fail to realize is that there is a certain spark and magic that comes from naivety, youthful exuberance, fearlessness and lack of musical cynicism. Music fans can still look at something like Atom Heart and feel the same excitement for the material that the band felt in 1970. Atom Heart captures a snapshot in time and place of this band and these friendships, a point I need to stress. Sometimes capturing the simple moments of your life are as important to your story as are the planned spectacles and big events-this goes for life and art. You shouldn't assume your big planned event is any more important than that beautiful anyday Sunday morning waking next to your loved one, having a coffee and the paper with the sun coming in the window. Nor should the Floyd assume their later masterpieces must render their own simple breakfast of eggs, high-minded humor, and music with a friend regrettable. Both are valid moments that color one's life or one's artistic career with great authenticity. On your death bed it is quite likely that memories of your life's simple joys will bring you more comfort than recalling some big planned event or goal that you felt you had to achieve. And thus what Atom Heart represents for the lads and captures for the listener should not be under-estimated simply because more critics (and fans) bought The Wall, or because Roger thinks Radio Kaos was more substantive. The misgivings the bandmembers have with the material of this period have become all the more amusing and ironic to me as a music lover. They say this album is "rubbish" and that they had no idea what they were doing, and yet it is this material ('67-70) that remains the most intriguing for the long-time Floyd fans who have heard the later, safer stuff to death and wish to hear the band at their most reaching and curious. I would argue that the post-period pronouncements of the band members miss the point entirely and are driven by factors not important to music lovers. Furthermore, the two long tracks are gloriously free of lyrical content and prove that music done properly can convey feeling without words, another feather in the cap of this particular album. An interesting comment I noted by Gilmour was that Waters would not become lyrically strong until "Obscured by Clouds," noting that his lyrics before that, and on Echoes specifically, were merely "words to hang the music on." I bring this up because again, many Floyd fans love the Echoes lyrics and Gilmour's dismissal of them is not all that relevant.

The album's strength lies in the two long pieces Atom Heart Mother and Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast which comprise 36 of the album's 52 minutes. This is pure musical exploration and progressive nirvana, taking the raw adventurism of Ummagumma's studio material in a much more listener-friendly direction. AHM is "out there" but it is not dissonant, difficult to enjoy, or lacking warm melody. It is the best of their transitional albums because it does improve over Ummagumma and yet retains the interesting progressive side better than Meddle would. The horns, effects, and choirs-as well as the free-spirited material itself-satisfy this listener over time in a way that Echoes has ceased to. Echoes is a very pretty track that begins well, with gorgeous frailty, but bogs down in the middle and becomes quite easily assimilated in the way that AHM and APB do not. The palette presented on AHM/ASB is just stunning and I would argue far more interesting than the static, predictable Echoes repetitions (more on specific tracks following.) The title track is a feast of emotions and feelings from the soaring grandiosity of the main theme propelled by horns and guitar, to the fragile melancholy of the violin over Wright's beautiful keyboard, to the baroque feel in places. From there we will experience some of Gilmour's fine lead guitar, gorgeous, haunting, and searching. The piece continues by moving into dark territory with desolate wordless vocals building to dramatic, frightening-at-times chants by the full choir. There are gorgeous operatic vocals here that bring chills. It will revisit the various sections and twist beautifully back into the main theme before charting off again leaving you feeling uneasy, but with hope. That is what AHM leaves me with: a musical overview of the human condition. Mason would talk about the cover being intentionally plain and wanting to make a connection with the "earth mother" and if that includes pondering human emotions they succeed smashingly. Moving on to the second gem here we have Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast which I recall being inspired by German composer Carl Orff. Another track that too many listeners mistake as "filler" material because they don't have their ears on apparently. This is pure sound beauty, pure progressive delight, or "sound poems" as someone described them. What exactly is the problem with three beautiful sections of experimental pastoral-psych from the early heyday of a progressive pioneer? The sound effects were recorded in the kitchen of Nick Mason as roadie Alan was showing off his talents as breakfast connoisseur. But the sound effects are simply a whimsical sideshow. The fact is that the three appetizing courses of music are perfectly anonymous, wondrous because of their unassuming beauty. Not every piece has to be so "conceived" as "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" to be meaningful. Musical beauty and success come in many forms and APB is a sentimental keepsake of a band still into each other as friends sans the acrimony that success brought. Part one is filled with Richard's waking piano, sunny dispositions capturing the new day. Just delightful. Part two is courtesy of Dave's acoustic guitar, sitting on the stoop and serenading as we munch away and sip tea. In the third part, the band comes together and births one of the happiest melodies in Floyd's canon, imparting on me the coming day and moving from the morning to the possibilities of that day with hope. "Morning Glory" indeed.

The album loses the 5th star for me in the short tracks. They would have been far better served omitting "If" and "Fat Old Sun" and maybe just allowing Richard's joyous little "Summer '68" be an odd transition between the longer pieces. They could have even added a fourth section to APB with the extra time. "If" is a fairly weak Waters track with the wrong feel for this album's eventual optimism. "Fat Old Sun" would later become a stronger piece in Dave's live shows and while not out of place, it just doesn't match the strength of the surrounding material. His performance here is beyond laid-back, so sleepy as to be comatose. So while Atom Heart Mother is not the perfect masterpiece that "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" is, it is an essential title to fans of Pink Floyd and highly recommended to any adventurous progressive fan. The '94 remaster sounds great but features the annoying "new" artwork inside the accompanying lyric booklet rather than authentically matching the original design, a real pet peeve of mine. A minor quibble for a great album.

Cherish the small moments, and be well.

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