Pink Floyd – Obscured By Clouds / Capitol Records Audio CD 1995 / CDP 0777 7 46385 2 4 UPC 077774638524 Obscured by Clouds is the seventh studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 2 June 1972 by Harvest and Capitol Records. It serves as the soundtrack for the French film La Vallée, by Barbet Schroeder. It was recorded in two sessions in France, while Pink Floyd were in the midst of touring, and produced by the band. Obscured by Clouds is shorter than some of Pink Floyd's previous albums, and makes heavy use of the acoustic guitar. Lyrically, the songs centre around love, a common theme in the film the album was inspired by. The album's only single was "Free Four". Obscured by Clouds has been seen as a stopgap for the band, who had started work on their next album, The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). The album reached number six in the United Kingdom and number 46 in the United States; retrospective opinions from both fans and critics have been mixed, some critics noting the similarities to their later material. Label: Capitol Records – CDP 0777 7 46385 2 4 Format: CD, Album Country: US Released: 1995 Genre: Rock, Stage & Screen Style: Soundtrack, Prog Rock, Classic Rock Tracklist: 1 Obscured By Clouds Written-By – Gilmour, Waters 3:05 2 When You're In Written-By – Gilmour, Mason, Wright, Waters 2:28 3 Burning Bridges Written-By – Wright, Waters 3:29 4 The Gold It's In The... Written-By – Gilmour, Waters 3:07 5 Wot's...Uh The Deal Written-By – Gilmour, Waters 5:09 6 Mudmen Written-By – Gilmour, Wright 4:20 7 Childhood's End Written-By – Gilmour 4:35 8 Free Four Written-By – Waters 4:16 9 Stay Written-By – Wright, Waters 4:07 10 Absolutely Curtains Written-By – Gilmour, Mason, Wright, Waters 5:52 Cover – Hipgnosis (2) Design [Re-packaged By] – Jon Crossland, Storm Thorgerson Mastered By – Doug Sax Performer [Music Performed By] – Pink Floyd Photography By [New Photographs] – Angus Macray Photography [Film Stills Courtesy Of] – Les Films De Losange Supervised By [Re-mastering Supervised By] – James Guthrie
Obscured by Clouds is the soundtrack to the Barbet Schroeder film La Vall?e, and it plays that way. Of course, it's possible to make the argument that Pink Floyd's music of the early '70s usually played as mood music, similar to film music, but it had structure and a progression. Here, the instrumentals float pleasantly, filled with interesting textures, yet they never seem to have much of a purpose. Often, they seem quite tied to their time, either in their spaciness or in the pastoral folkiness, two qualities that are better brought out on the full-fledged songs interspersed throughout the record. Typified by "Burning Bridges" and "Wot's...uh the Deal," these songs explore some of the same musical ground as those on Atom Heart Mother and Meddle, yet they are more concise and have a stronger structure. But the real noteworthy numbers are the surprisingly heavy blues-rocker "The Gold It's in The...," which, as good as it is, is trumped by the stately, ominous "Childhood's End" and the jaunty pop tune "Free Four," two songs whose obsessions with life, death, and the past clearly point toward Dark Side of the Moon. ("Childhood's End" also suggests Dark Side in its tone and arrangement.) As startlingly advanced as these last two songs are, they're not enough to push the rest of Obscured by Clouds past seeming just like a soundtrack, yet these tunes, blended with the sensibility of Meddle, suggest what Pink Floyd was about to develop into. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
