We all have those bands and artists who hold a special place in our music collectio
ns and whose albums we revisit on a regular occasion, and there are also those albums which make up the collection but we don’t listen to enough. One of those bands at RRC is Pink Floyd and this year was the 50th anniversary of one of their most underrated albums, that is why here at Runout we choose to highlight Obscured by Clouds as our curated album for November.
So we have all been told that Pink Floyd are one the greatest bands ever and that Dark Side of the Moon is their magnum opus, in the same way as we are told that hot things will burn you, if you haven’t been told this then we strongly advise you take a long hard look at your life and also perhaps head to your local A & E department to look at that burn.
Formed in 1965 and touted as the premier English psychedelic rock band the group was spearheaded by Syd Barrett accompanied by Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright and had great early success with their debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Quickly though the band was forced to face the deteriorating mental health of their leader Barrett who left the band in 1968, with David Gilmour having joined in late 1967 the core of the band was to remain until Richard Wright's departure in 1979.
After Barrett's departure Roger Walters took up the mantle as creative force for the band and proceeded to lead the group into a place in rock history with his concepts, but to put all the praise on Walters is not fair to the outstanding musicality and conceptual leanings of his bandmates, Gilmour the outstanding guitarist, Mason’s big band and jazz drumming, and Wrights free form & immersive style. All the members of Pink Floyd helped to contribute to the bands success from the early psychedelic days to the soundtracks and the conceptual albums of the 1970s.
So 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of Obscured by Clouds, and while officially a soundtrack to a film by Berbet Schroeder called La Vallée, (the band fell out with the film company after recording and as such released the album under a different name to the film) the album has become a part of the canon of Pink Floyd albums that are dismissed. Meddle, Ummagumma, More, and Atom Heart Mother the albums in the period after Barrett’s departure, and after the creation of A Saucerful of Secrets and before the creation of The Dark Side of the Moon from 1968 through 1973 are a group of amazing albums who can be used to trace the bands development into the global superstars they would be become from art school musicians to psychedelic pioneers and then experimental progressive rock juggernauts.
So why is Obscured by Clouds so interesting? Many find the album as a piece of filler on a schedule that saw the band completing it in two sessions while touring in Japan and as such meeting their commitment to complete a film score, others see the deeper contextual experimentation through the use of more acoustic guitar, it is interesting to consider that the album acted as a way for the band to experiment while they were creating Dark Side of the Moon, but to also release something which acted as a precursor to fans allowing them to be prepared for the forthcoming changes seen in DSOTM.
While most of Floyds other albums were prone to extended psychedelic excursions, the songs on Obscured by Clouds generally adhere to a four-minute song structure. There is heavier use of acoustic guitar which gives a more country music feel to several of the songs, especially ‘Wot’s… Uh the Deal?’ and the album’s only single, ‘Free Four’. The album is unique, its light sound showed the diverse talents of the band members, but may also explain why some of the Pink Floyd purists weren’t particularly accepting of the album at the time.
Tracks like the simmering instrumental ‘Mudmen’ one of two tracks ever attributed to the duo of Gilmour/Wright easily function as a sonic bridge between The Dark Side of the Moon and Obscured by Clouds. The quartet conjures hugely ethereal moods from Wright's rippling organs and VCS 3 synthesizer, to Gilmour's aching slide guitar, and Waters' murmuring bass, brought together through Mason's simmering drum fills.
Obscured by Clouds deserves more, much more. There are ten songs on the album and they’re all as good as the last, four of them are instrumentals, with the rest having vocals. Unlike older Floyd albums, Obscured by Clouds flows smoothly all the way through, never going out of balance.. All the music and the vocals are fantastic throughout the entire album, and one of the things most loved about Obscured By Clouds is that it lets the listeners hear Pink Floyd at a very transitional time in their career as a band. You can still hear similarities to some of the previous experimental sounds they displayed on their earlier albums, but you can also hear traces of what would soon come from them on The Dark Side of the Moon and beyond.
We hope you enjoy the album as much as we do.
Take care, Stu
RRC