Sunday, February 21, 2010

Careful with That Axe


Pink Floyd Obscured By Clouds LP 1972, Harvest Recordings

This whole time that I write about whatever records, I have been heavily into Pink Floyd. They've never made it to this weekly review but they seriously slay anyways and are one of the best bands ever. Everyone has listened to Pink Floyd, but have you really gotten loose on their endless tap of amazing records? There is something rad going on on all of them, even the ones from the 80s. Obviously their late 60s and early 70s work is the most rad and when they were the most prolific and made tons of records in just a few years. This LP came out right after Meddle (1971), which also is total mindmelter, and so it has the ambient, textured feel of Meddle and also a huge foreshadowing of where they went with Dark Side Of the Moon (1973), which they were already making while they did this LP. It is an expansion of the material they did for the soundtrack for a film called La Vallée by Barbet Schroeder. They go all over the place with it, layered with the sonic superiority that this band is straight known for, so wicked for taking the journey. Obscured By Clouds has some of their heaviest moments, especially on the albums closer," Childhood's End." It shreds, highly recommended.



Pink Floyd A Saucerful of Secrets LP 1968, Columbia Recordings

Not only is A Saucerful of Secrets one of Pink Floyd's greatest records, it is also one of the greatest records ever period- the psychedelic unruliness and sheer power that it wields from movement to movement are untouchable. This is one of their most freak out-est and raw noisiest records, it completely wrecks shit from start to finish. It rules even more with the banger "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" (which has a little bit of original member Syd Barrett's guitar playing on and also his song 'Jugband Blues' on the record, so rad) but then it also has that dreamy, symphonic Floyd sound that they milked later on super hard, on songs like "Let There Be More Light" and "See Saw." To think about being around in 1968 and going to the record shop and getting this weird looking record then going home and smoking 1968 weed while it spins around, that shit must have been totally rad. These guys fucking slayed.

1 comment:

jdisco said...

Sadly, Barrett's last contribution on a Floyd record. The song on the end is pretty much about his awareness that he is being pushed out of the band.

Did you know Dr. Strange is on the album cover?