Obscured By Clouds - Music from La Vallee (Stereo

This album may not be awash with the type of material for which the Floyd are primarily known and loved, but I've always rated it very highly indeed. It is such an undervalued gem, and for some unknown reason - perhaps the very one I opened this review with - bypassed and overlooked by the press, the radio and the public alike. Even though it is packed with great, even radio-friendly tunes, and flows every bit as effortlessly as an album as Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon. I mean, come on, NO singles released from this one??? What were they thinking of? If Free Four wasn't a sure-fire top 3 hit, I don't know what was. It's in the same sort of area as Traffic's You Can All Join In, which was so obvious as a single, and yet languished unregarded as an LP track, for heaven's sake!The first 2 non-vocal tracks are perhaps the most typically Floydian, in their brooding, slightly menacing thud, and are quite similar. The fact that they are almost inseparable confers a continuity which seems to sketch out the landscape for the whole album, even though there is nothing quite like them anywhere else.The following 3 tracks take the album in an altogether more blissful direction, being almost country-rock with shades of Grantchester Meadows in places. Mudmen is another good instrumental track which brings (what was) side 1 to a satisfying conclusion.(What was) Side 2 has only 4 tracks, with Childhood's End signalling perhaps a future direction for the opening of Wish You Were Here, before the musically jaunty but lyrically daunting Free Four. We are then back in the same territory as tracks 3-5 on side 1 for Stay, and then a very odd conclusion to the set, with some unsettling ethnic chanting to close Absolutely Curtains, the only track on the album which I'm still not quite sure about! Musically it doesn't really fit, but it's more in line with the theme of the film (La Vallée), so of course in that sense it works just fine, in reminding you what it's all about.I listened to and recorded the whole of 6Music's recent Pink Floyd night, and although I didn't get to hear every single second (but will in the fullness of time), I was deeply dismayed not to hear a single track from Obscured By Clouds. The only fleeting reference I heard was a mention of the title when the quantity of film soundtracks Floyd had done was being discussed. During the evening, several tracks from More and at least one from Zabriskie Point were played, and yet they are both, in my opinion, inferior to OBC. And in fact, more pedantically, Zabriskie Point is not even a Floyd album!To their credit, though, they did play the entire 23 minutes of Echoes without interruption.And speaking of the Pink Floyd night, although this is not related to OBC, I just wanted to berate the presenter of one of the programmes which focused on Ummagumma for playing the whole of The Narrow Way, Sysyphus, and The Grand Vizier's Garden Party, while ignoring completely the utter lunacy of Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict! Now what a GREAT single THAT would have made! (If they can issue The Mothers of Invention's It Can't Happen Here on a 7"...)Final comment: the title of this review was a comment regularly made by myself (5'5") and several friends (various heights, but barely more and some less), on returning from festivals and relating the weekends' experiences to others less fortunate or hardy, perpetually bemoaning the habit of most of the audience in front of us, of continually standing up and blocking the view of the stage and its performers, thus preventing us from taking photos at appropriate moments. Just when you thought it was safe to press the button, some clod obscured the view!

Don't know how I missed this 50 years ago, but glad I found it now. Not really for getting drunk to, but great the following morning.

A very underrated Pink Floyd classic! Great sound quality.

Rarely praised but should be

This is brilliant, never heard it before love it

If u like dark side of the moon buy this album

This album is frequently overlooked or relegated, as it was done as a film soundtrack for La Valeé. Produced at Pink Floyds most fruitful period as a band, all the elements of what we know as them are here. But it’s also wonderfully transitional.It was made in the middle of the process for Dark Side of the Moon, but it feels different. It has the musicianship of that album, but also a sense of playfulness, which really started to be lost once Dark Side came out. It’s a band album, with a band feel, much the same as Meddle, and also a bit like Atom Heart Mother. Part of me prefers to listen to this over anything after it. I don’t think you need to be a mad fan to enjoy it.

Having been a long term fan of Dark Side of the Moon and the Floyd in general I was eager to hear more of their extensive back catalogue. I had never heard any of the tracks on Obscured by Clouds before but was immediately drawn in to the laid back psychedelic trip this album entails. Opener "Obscured By Clouds" is an instrumental blending spacy synths with cosmic blues guitar lines. Rocker "The Gold It's In The..." describes a journey, maybe a Pink Floyd world tour? "Childhood's End", which has a touch of the funk about it, questions man's transitory existence, whilst "Stay" carries a much more personal message to a loved one. Released the year before Dark Side of the Moon, this album is less bombastic and much less well known, but ultimately points in the same direction and hints at what was just around the corner for the Floyd. Plug into some decent speakers and enjoy.