Obscured By Clouds

The 1972 album, "Obscured By Clouds" has no business being as good as it is.  This release was written and recorded in only 2 weeks while the band was already working on their next album, "The Dark Side of the Moon". A film producer had asked the band to write music for his new film and so they did. The Floyd always wanted to work on soundtracks but it never seemed to work out for them.

Stanley Kubrick had previously approached the band to complete the soundtrack for his film, "2001: A Space Odyssey" a few years earlier but that idea crashed over "creative differences".  So when French filmmaker,  Barbet Schroeder requested their services for his film "La Vallee" the band "took a break" and recorded "Obscured By Clouds".

The cover of Obscured by Clouds is an out-of-focus film still of a man in a tree.

 

What you have here is a very relaxing and mood setting piece of music mixed in with a little jazz.
This is actually a very nice little album but is often forgotten because it sits between "Meddle" and "DSOTM".

Mixed in with some very soothing instrumentals like the title song there are some excellent songs.  

The best here can be found in two songs from David Gilmour.  "The Gold It's the...", and "Childhoods's End" which he wrote after reading the Arthur C. Clarke of the same name.  Both of these are great rock 'n roll songs that would sound great on any rock album.

Of course Roger Waters is up to his usual self misery with "Free Four" which may be the most fun you will ever have with a song describing misery. This song actually bounces at it covers the death of Water's father in WWII and the evils of the record industry.

The Richard Wright song "Stay" is also a nice harmonizing song that we thought Pink Floyd had forgotten how to do.

There is some filler here, which is very unusual for Pink Floyd but they had very big things in the works and after all this was just for fun, and a forgotten film.