Obscured by Clouds
| Obscured by Clouds | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
|||||
| Studio album / Soundtrack album by Pink Floyd | |||||
| Released | 2 June 1972 | ||||
| Recorded | 23–29 February and 23 March–6 April 1972, | ||||
| Studio | Strawberry Studios, Château d'Hérouville, Hérouville, Île-de-France, France | ||||
| Genre | Progressive rock | ||||
| Length | 40:30 | ||||
| Language | English | ||||
| Label | |||||
| Producer | Pink Floyd | ||||
| Pink Floyd chronology | |||||
|
|||||
| Pink Floyd soundtracks chronology | |||||
|
|||||
| Singles from Obscured by Clouds | |||||
|
|||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Robert Christgau | C |
| The Daily Telegraph | |
| MusicHound | 1/5 |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
Obscured by Clouds is the seventh studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, based on their soundtrack for the French film La Vallée, by Barbet Schroeder. Some copies of the album refer to the film by its English title, The Valley. The cover of Obscured by Clouds is an out-of-focus film still of a man in a tree. The lyrics and music tell the story of one's journeys. The album was released in the United Kingdom on 2 June 1972, and a few weeks later in the United States, by Harvest, reaching number 6 and number 46 respectively. A single, "Free Four", was issued in the US only.
By 1972, Pink Floyd had supplied the soundtracks to the films The Committee (1968) and More (1969), and to part of Zabriskie Point (1970). Consequently, Barbet Schroeder asked the band to create the soundtrack for La Vallée, which they had agreed to do after More had become a success. The group had already started working on The Dark Side of the Moon at this point, having done some basic recording and performed the piece live several times, but work was interrupted when the band travelled to France on two separate trips, either side of a Japanese tour, to write and record music for the film. The album was then mixed from 4–6 April at Morgan Sound Studios in London.
As they had done on More, the band saw a rough cut of the film, and noted down certain timings for cues with a stopwatch. From this, they created a number of pieces that they felt could be cross-faded at various points in the final cut of the film. They weren't too worried about creating complete songs, feeling that any musical piece would be workable without the need for any solos, but nevertheless, under pressure to produce enough material, they managed to create a whole series of well-structured songs. Drummer Nick Mason recalls that the sessions were very hurried, and the band spent most of the time in Paris locked away in the studio.
...
Wikipedia