ATOM HEART MOTHER

Mindless at its worst, brilliant at its best, ATOM HEART MOTHER is one of the most controversial albums in Pink Floyd's body of work. There's not a whole lot of ''rocking'' going on here, and the prog is more of the experimental jamming type. The problem: the jamming can get pretty vacuous.

The title track holds much promise with its length and the incorporation of both a brass section and a choir, things that Pink Floyd would rarely use again. Typical aspects of Floyd jamming like Gilmour's more soulful solos and Wright's keyboard touches are here, but the drumming isn't that exciting. Geesin did a tremendous job making the brass section work, and the choirs remind me of Magma (that group was new at the time). However, there are about five minutes here that are nothing more than a void, a problem I have with several longer Pink Floyd tracks.

One more collaborative effort appears here, and that's ''Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast''. It's essentially a collage of a man making breakfast and a few delicate improvisations. It's a pleasant track when you listen to it, but the music is so sedated it's borderline dull and dreary. ''Fat Old Sun'' and ''If'' are two voids on the album that are completely skippable.

''Summer '68'' contrasts the rest of the album; jovial, full of life and not a dull moment. It really doesn't fit on ATOM HEART MOTHER given the context of the other tunes, but ''Summer '68'' is a top-notch Floyd track with superb brass lines. Rick Wright is responsible for this tune, and it indicates how overlooked his writing typically is. The track is as close as Pink Floyd got to the Cantebury scene.

ATOM HEART MOTHER is a generally overlooked album that is absolutely not for starters. Pick it up at some point in your prog journey, but have a Rush album handy just in case AHM puts you to sleep.