ATOM HEART MOTHER

"Atom Heart Mother" is an epochal Lp in the discography of Pink Floyd because it enshrines the transition from psychedelia to progressive itself, with a formula studied at the table that includes a suite of an entire facade and a series of pop songs easy listening on the other, in so to get to the time with the emerging musical fashion, the progressive rock, and keeping in mind the commercial matter.

In fact, Pink Floyd will be by far the best-selling of the progressive era, and together with Genesis the only ones able to survive the era of punk and to know how to stay on the market even in the Eighties.

This compromise between progressive sound and commercial sound, with a legacy of psychedelia, remains evident in the songs of "Atom Heart Mother", creating a rarefied, liquid, narcoleptic atmosphere, typical of the suite on side 1. This great musical piece (almost 24 minutes, divided in 6 movements) is played in a classical-avant-garde style, and orchestrated by Ron Geesin with Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and John Alldis Choir. The beginning is very solemn, with the brass ensemble playing the main motif of the suite (comparable to the Promenade of Pictures At An Exibition by EL&P) amid various noises, then begins the first track, keyboards and cello, then bass guitar and drums, then brasses and bass, in a progression that reaches the climax towards the fifth minute and a half, when the choir arrives, predominantly female: melodically perhaps the best moment of the suite and the whole album (and anticipates the woman's voice of "The Great Gig In The Sky" , TDSOTM). This suite cannot be considered instrumental for the decisive contribution of choirs. Around 10'15' comes a clearly psychedelic piece, keyboards and guitar that evolves into a choral piece where again the vocal input with onomatopoietic sounds is fundamental, and that resolves to the fifteenth minute with the repetition of the main theme, which, as it has rightly pointed out the Italian-American historian of music Scaruffi, it is more sleepy than martial. The suite picks up with a decidedly psychedelic, hallucinatory piece, perhaps the moment that more than any other ties the LP to the past of the Sixties, then at the eighteenth minute the music has a pause where previous musical motifs come back, as at make a summary of what explored up to that point, but a cacophonous summary, until the main musical theme with brasses resurfaces, for the third time. At this point the suite could end (we are at 19'45'') instead Pink Floyd prefer to repeat themselves by returning to the initial theme with the cello and then to devote themselves in an instrumental progression and end in an orchestral manner with a sound orgasm at the time threatening and solemn. A masterpiece of contemporary music. Rating 9+.

SIDE B. "If" is a melodic folk song, which opens the second side continuing the sleepy tone of the suite. The melody and arrangement are tender, fluffy, as is Waters's singing, and the piece does not have a chourus, it repeats the same chords to the end, with a slight progression in the arrangement, which sees electric guitar, piano and percussion arrive, in so as to avoid getting bored, and in fact the piece closes just when an additional verse would have been too repetitive. The beauty of the song is all in the melody and arrangement. Rating 7.5/8.

Wright's piece is by far the gem of the second side and perhaps the entire album because it concentrates in 5 1/2 minutes the beauty of the 24-minute suite. This piano ballad with Sixties inflections and instrumental moments with sensational brass, reminiscent of the suite, is from a compositional point of view much more elaborate than the other pieces but at the same time is also the most spontaneous and flowing song. Also beautiful is the melancholy piece of voice and piano after the brass. Rating 9.5

Gilmour's "Fat Old Sun" is languid and vaguely psychedelic, and again the tone of music and voice is soporific (the effect of drugs is felt). The song continues the tender melody of Waters, with the difference that here the music has more space to develop, after a very verbose beginning, sporting a beautiful solo on Gilmour's electric guitar. It also turns out that the melody is not as beautiful as If's. Rating 8.

And, in the end, here's to you the weakest point of the album, "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast (12:56)", in three movements, unfortunately, up to 13 minutes. It's Mason's turn, which he thinks to do avant- garde puts a piece of "concrete music" with the noises of Alan's breakfast, from the match to the stove to the burning eggs, to him that swallows you do not know what, with his voice that says amenity. In between there are three instrumental pieces, ballads largely piano and melodic (the first and the third, while the second is a track folk led by acoustic guitar), almost worthy of Wright and not at all ugly, indeed quite beautiful, especially the third. Only that the idea repeated three times is quite long, it should have made only two movements. Yesterday it was avant-garde, today it's a dated piece. Rating 7

After a first side that represents one of the avant-gardes of the 1970 progressive (rating 9,25), follows a second melodic side, inferior musically (and little prog) especially in the finale, which also suffers from the lack of a proper vocalist, but which nevertheless presents another masterpiece and that you listen to in a sliding way and with pleasure from start to finish and with an average quality of 8.13. Masterpiece of prog rock.

Rating album 9+. Five Stars.