Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother (1970)

Now that I've 'fixed' most of the albums which the artists claimed to have been ruined by the addition of extra orchestration against their wishes, I'm turning to albums that the fans have wanted to hear shorn of their extra instrumentation, beginning with a classic from Pink Floyd. 

Pink Floyd started work on their new album after completing their contributions to the soundtrack for the film Zabriskie Point in Rome, which had ended somewhat acrimoniously. They headed back to London in early 1970 for rehearsals, and the title track of 'Atom Heart Mother' resulted from a number of instrumental figures the band had composed during these rehearsals. Recording of the track commenced at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London, and was somewhat cumbersome, as it was the first recording to use a new eight-track one-inch tape and EMI TG12345 transistorised mixing console (8-track, 24-microphone inputs) in the studio. As a result, EMI insisted the band were not allowed to do any splicing of the tape to edit pieces together, and so Roger Waters and Nick Mason had little choice but to play the bass and drums for the entire 23-minute piece in one sitting, with the other instruments being overdubbed later. By March, they had finished recording the track, but felt that it was rather unfocused and needed something else, and as the band had been impressed with Ron Geesin's composition and tape-editing capabilities, he was handed the completed backing tracks that the band had recorded, and asked to compose an orchestral arrangement over the top of it, while the band went on tour to the US. David Gilmour came up with some of the melodic lines, while the pair of them along with keyboardist Richard Wright worked on the middle section with the choir. 

During the recording of his work in June with the EMI Pops Orchestra, the session musicians present were unimpressed with his tendency to favour avant-garde music over established classical works, and, combined with the relative difficulty of some of the parts, harassed him during recording. John Alldis, whose choir was also to perform on the track, had experience in dealing with orchestral musicians, and managed to conduct the recorded performance in place of Geesin. The orchestral arrangements feature a full brass section, a cello and the 16-piece John Alldis choir, while Pink Floyd mainly provide the backing tracks. Side two opens with three five-minute songs: one by each of the band's three resident songwriters; then closes with a sound effects-dominated musical suite primarily conceived by Mason and credited to the whole group. Waters contributes a folk ballad called 'If', playing acoustic guitar, while Wright's 'Summer '68', features prominent use of brass in places. According to Mason, Gilmour, having had little song-writing experience at that point, was ordered to remain in EMI until he had composed a song suitable for inclusion on the album, coming up with the folk-influenced tune 'Fat Old Sun', and the the final track, 'Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast', is divided into three segments, each with its own descriptive title, joined by dialogue and sound effects of then-roadie Alan Styles preparing, discussing, and eating breakfast. Although the band often played 'Atom Heart Mother' live, both with and without an orchestra, I wanted to hear the original recording as just played by the band, and so have removed the strings, brass and choir from it, as well as stripping the brass section from 'Summer '68'.  

Track listing

01 Atom Heart Mother
02 If

03 Summer '68
04 Fat Old Sun
05 Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast