Friday, November 24, 2017

Pink Floyd - 1969 [1987] "More" (Soundtrack)

More is the first full-length soundtrack album, and third studio album, by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 13 June 1969 in the United Kingdom by EMI Columbia and on 9 August 1969 by Tower Records a subsidiary label of Capitol Records in the United States as Original Motion Picture Soundtrack from the film More. It is the first album by the band to be released by Capitol internationally. The film More was primarily filmed on location on Ibiza where most of the story takes place. It was the directorial debut for Barbet Schroeder.

More is a psychedelic rock soundtrack album that contains some acoustic folk ballads, a genre that appeared sparsely on Pink Floyd's later works. It also contains some of the band's "heaviest" recordings, such as "The Nile Song" and "Ibiza Bar", as well as several instrumental tracks, featuring their experimental and avant-garde approach.

This is Pink Floyd's first full album without founding member Syd Barrett, who was ousted from the group in early 1968 during the recording of A Saucerful of Secrets. It is one of the three Pink Floyd albums to feature David Gilmour as the sole lead vocalist, the others being 1987's A Momentary Lapse of Reason and 2014's The Endless River, and it is also the first album to be produced by Pink Floyd without assistance from Norman Smith. More was recorded at Pye Studios, Marble Arch, London and engineered by Brian Humphries. It is the only album in the band's discography not to have a lead vocal from Roger Waters during his tenure in the band.

Two songs can be heard in the film that were not included on the album: "Seabirds" and "Hollywood".

More reached number 9 in the UK and, upon re-release in 1973, number 153 in the US. In 1987, the album was issued on CD. A digitally remastered CD was released in 1995 in the UK and 1996 in the US.

Since 1995, the new edition changed the title to just Music from the Film More (US title: Music from the Motion Picture More). This was the last of three Pink Floyd albums to be released in the United States by the Tower Records division of Capitol Records. The 1973 US reissue was released on Harvest Records. Although the CD restores the original United Kingdom title in all countries, it is represented differently on the spine (Music from the Film More) and label More. For the Pink Floyd Records 2016 re-issue, the name reverted to Soundtrack from the film More which was released 3 June 2016.

More received mostly negative reviews from critics. The Daily Telegraph was favorable towards the album, while AllMusic provided a mixed response. MusicHound and Rolling Stone, however, were less positive, with the former giving the album a rating of one out of five.

For their third album, Pink Floyd were commissioned to provide the score to More, a film by Barbet Schroeder that dealt heavily with drugs. Ultimately, his movie became nothing more than a footnote, but the mesmerizing soundtrack – released on Aug. 9, 1969 – stands on its own as a true Pink Floyd album.
At this point, the group was still trying to find a new path following the departure of Syd Barrett. Pink Floyd's second album, A Saucerful of Secrets, had featured a hybrid five-man lineup that still included their erratic founding frontman. With Barrett officially gone, certain tracks on More made their path more clear.
Opening with "Cirrus Minor," the soon-to-be-signature Floyd sound swims through, following some introductory nature sounds which create a dream-like feel. That hazy state is soon harshly disrupted by what is probably Floyd's loudest and most aggressive track, "The Nile Song." As brutal and powerful as anyone else of the era, they bludgeon our ears with some fine neanderthal, proto-metal rock. This could easily be held up as one of this group's great lost songs.

"The Crying Song" settles things back to mellow mode. Written by Roger Waters, who had a hand in all the songs here, this beautiful number perfectly captures the mood of his lyric. "We cry and cry, sadness passes in a while," David Gilmour sings over a bed of acoustic guitars, vibes and minimal drums, creating an atmosphere that is more haunting than psychedelic. He'd handle all of the vocals on More.
"Green Is the Colour" is a pretty little ditty dressed up with piano, acoustic guitars and recorder, while "Cymbaline" is another forgotten gem. The song could have easily fit on any given Pink Floyd album up to, and including, Wish You Were Here. Gilmour's vocal gives it a timeless quality, and was covered by Hawkwind for inclusion on their 1970 debut, though it remained unreleased until the '90s. "Ibiza Bar" is cut from the same cloth as "The Nile Song," with Nick Mason thundering away on drums.
The rest of the album, including tracks like "Up the Khyber," "Party Sequence," "Quicksilver" and "Main Theme," supplies a variety of moods and styles to fit in with the film – and, though written for that purpose, stand on their own as interesting slices of Pink Floyd from this period. That helped More sail into the U.K. Top 10, though it failed to make a dent stateside, where the album finished at just No. 153 by year's end.
For some, the soundtrack work – including More, Zabriskie Point, and Obscured by Clouds – is held apart from their regular catalog. They're considered sidesteps, and are not judged as "standard" Pink Floyd albums. More, however, makes its own argument for a place in the larger scheme of things. Listen in, and you will hear a whole world of great sounds from this always-exceptional band.

Commissioned as a soundtrack to the seldom-seen French hippie movie of the same name, More was a Pink Floyd album in its own right, reaching the Top Ten in Britain. The group's atmospheric music was a natural for movies, but when assembled for record, these pieces were unavoidably a bit patchwork, ranging from folky ballads to fierce electronic instrumentals to incidental mood music. Several of the tracks are pleasantly inconsequential, but this record does include some strong compositions, especially "Cymbaline," "Green Is the Colour," and "The Nile Song." All of these developed into stronger pieces in live performances, and better, high-quality versions are available on numerous bootlegs.

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Track listing:

01. "Cirrus Minor" Waters 5:18
02. "The Nile Song" Waters 3:26
03. "Crying Song" Waters 3:33
04. "Up the Khyber" (instrumental) Mason, Wright 2:12
05. "Green Is the Colour" Waters 2:58
06. "Cymbaline" Waters 4:50
07. "Party Sequence" (instrumental) Waters, Wright, Gilmour, Mason 1:07
08. "Main Theme" (instrumental) Waters, Wright, Gilmour, Mason 5:27
09. "Ibiza Bar" Waters, Wright, Gilmour, Mason 3:19
10. "More Blues" (instrumental) Waters, Wright, Gilmour, Mason 2:12
11. "Quicksilver" (instrumental) Waters, Wright, Gilmour, Mason 7:13
12. "A Spanish Piece" Gilmour 1:05
13. "Dramatic Theme" (instrumental) Waters, Wright, Gilmour, Mason 2:15

Total length: 44:56

Personnel:

Roger Waters – bass guitar, tape effects, percussion
Nick Mason – drums, percussion
Richard Wright – Farfisa Combo Compact Duo organ, Hammond M-102 spinet organ, piano, vibraphone, backing vocals
David Gilmour – acoustic, electric, slide, and flamenco guitars, percussion, lead vocals

Additional personnel:

Lindy Mason – tin whistle on "Green Is the Colour" and "Party Sequence"

6 comments:

  1. Despite loving their most famous albums for years, I didn't hear this LP until relatively recently. Not nearly as great as Dark Side or Wish You Were Here, of course, it's still a really good album that gives a cool look at a side of Pink Floyd not nearly as well known, and I listen to it far more often these days than to their more famous works.

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  2. This has always been my favorite pre-Dark Side album of theirs. However, the first way I ever heard it was on the Italian version of the 8-track, which has, I think, a far superior running order. The LP bunches too many similar sounding pieces together. The 8 track is much more varied, and just sounds better paced overall. If anybody is interested in seeing if they agree, restructure it like so :

    1 Cirrus Minor
    2 Crying Song
    3 Dramatic Theme
    4 Up The Khyber
    5 Cymbaline
    6 Ibiza Bat
    7 Party Sequence
    8 The Nile Song
    9 Main Theme
    10 More Blues
    11 Quicksilver
    12 A Spanish Piece
    13 Green Is The Color

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  3. thx! Now I can bring my old Vinyl to the basement :)
    gfg

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  4. ZS is not available

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  5. https://workupload.com/file/3BB9u8SbBaK

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