Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother

1st UK Press. Cover is EXCELLENT. Record looks and sounds NEAR MINT

Year Released: 1970

Genre: Progressive Rock, Experimental Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Art Rock

Description:

Atom Heart Mother is the fifth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on October 10, 1970. The album is a pivotal and controversial work in their discography, marking their first major foray into large-scale, symphonic arrangements and moving them further away from the concise song structures of their early psychedelic work. The album is most famous for its long-form, two-part structure, with a full side dedicated to an orchestral suite and the second side featuring shorter, more conventional songs.

The album's centerpiece and title track is a 23-minute orchestral piece that occupies the entire first side of the LP. Titled "Atom Heart Mother," it was a collaboration with avant-garde composer Ron Geesin. The band struggled to complete the ambitious track, which features a full orchestra and a choir, and by their own admission, the recording process was difficult and frustrating. Despite the immense effort, the band members have since expressed mixed feelings about the final result, with some, like Roger Waters, openly disliking it.

The album's second side is more varied and features three songs, including Roger Waters's folksy "If," the trippy "Summer '68" sung by Richard Wright, and David Gilmour's blues-influenced "Fat Old Sun." The album concludes with the epic, seven-minute track "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast," which is a musique concrète piece featuring the sounds of the band's roadie, Alan Stiles, preparing and eating his breakfast. The album's iconic and minimalist cover art, featuring a Holstein cow in a pasture, was the band's defiant response to their record label's demand for a psychedelic and "trippy" cover. Designed by Hipgnosis, it became a perfect symbol of the album's unconventional nature