PINK FLOYD "Obscured By Clouds" 1972 UK 1st PRESS A1/B1

GRAM CO TEXT, TEXTURED G&L COVER, CLEAN AUDIO, EX++

PINK FLOYD
Obscured By Clouds (Music from 'LA VALLEE')

ORIGINAL UK HARVEST (SHSP 4020) FIRST PRESSING (June 1972) OF PINK FLOYD'S GORGEOUS "Obscured By Clouds" LP - BASED ON THEIR SOUNDTRACK TO BARBET SCHROEDER'S FILM "La Vallee"
AND THIS COPY IS IN SUPERB CONDITION, DELIVERING PRACTICALLY FLAWLESS AUDIO ON MY SYSTEM (AT A LOUD VOLUME!) WITH A CRYSTAL CLEAR, DEEP, RICH AND WARM SOUND - FANTASTIC COPY AND A BEAUTIFULLY CLEAN FIRST PRESSING

At this point in their career, Pink Floyd were not new to scoring movies. They had already scored the films More and Zabriskie Point in 1969 and 1970 respectively.
The band were already working on The Dark Side of the Moon, but production was interrupted when the band travelled to France to score the movie.
Nick Mason refers to the project:
"After the success of More, we had agreed to do another sound track for Barbet Schroeder. His new film was called La Vallée and we travelled over to France to record the music in the last week of February... We did the recording with the same method we had employed for More, following a rough cut of the film, using stopwatches for specific cues and creating interlinking musical moods that would be cross-faded to suit the final version... The recording time was extremely tight. We only had two weeks to record the soundtrack with a short amount of time afterwards to turn it into an album."
While recording the music, the band were free to use "standard rock song construction" to their advantage, and such was the case for "Obscured by Clouds". The title track featured an early use of electronic drums, or "electric bongos" as Mason calls them. Rick Wright foreshadows what is to come later with his use of synthesisers on this album. A droning note (played on an EMS VCS3 synthesiser) begins the album. This song was often used to open their live shows in the following years. The band also used themes to their advantage. The melody played in "Burning Bridges" is echoed later in "Mudmen". The song "Childhood's End" is said to have been inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's novel of the same name.
"Free Four" was the first Pink Floyd song to get significant airplay in the U.S., and the first to deal directly with the death of Eric Fletcher Waters, Roger Waters's father.

PRESSED ON QUALITY HEAVYWEIGHT VINYL (very thick and chunky) WHICH DELIVERS ABSOLUTELY SENSATIONAL AUDIO REPRODUCTION (nice strong, loud cut on these first pressings with a fantastic bass response and a very up-front, immediate sound)
THE RECORD HAS THE FIRST ISSUE HARVEST YELLOW/GREEN LABELS WITH "THE GRAMOPHONE CO LTD..." RIM TEXT
MARTIX: SHPS 4020 A-1 / SHPS 4020 B-1
MOTHERS/STAMPERS: ?/RA and ?/RH (no mother numbers are visible on either side)
AND IS HOUSED IN THE ORIGINAL DELICATE, TEXTURED, ROUNDED CORNER SLEEVE "Printed and made by Garrod & Lofthouse Ltd." WITH 'PINCHED' TOP AND BOTTOM SPINE, DATE CODED '7206' (1972, June)
COMPLETE WITH THE ORIGINAL HARVEST COMPANY ADVERTISING INNER SLEEVE

FIRST UK ISSUE CRITERIA:
Front Cover: An out-of-focus picture from the movie of a man in a tree in the rain. Textured. Round corners.
Back Cover: Three circles with pictures from the movie, plus a fourth circle with song listing and credits. In the upper right corner, it says "SHSP 4020 (IE 062 05054 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              062 05054      end_of_the_skype_highlighting) stereo" In the lower left corner, it says "7206 TPS Printed and made by Garrod & Lofthouse Ltd. SHSP 4020."
Inner Sleeve: Issued with a Harvest records inner sleeve.
Label: Yellow-green Harvest label. Text around the top edge of the label starts at 10 o'clock and says: The Gramophone Co., Ltd. All rights of the manufacturer and of the owner of the recorded work reserved. Text around the bottom edge of the label starts at 8 o'clock and says: Unauthorized public performance, broadcasting, and copying of this record prohibited. At the bottom of the label, it says "Made in GT Britain."

Track Listing:
Side 1: Obscured By Clouds / When You're In / Burning Bridges / Gold It's In The... / Wot's... Uh The Deal / Mudmen
Side 2: Childhood's End / Free Four / Stay / Absolutely Curtains

LABELS: The labels are clean, bright and unmarked with only light spindle traces - EXCELLENT+
VINYL Visual: The vinyl surfaces retain their original deep, like-new lustre and are practically unmarked - EXCELLENT+
VINYL Audio: The audio is absolutely sensational throughout - beautifully deep, rich and detailed and the pressing is very, very clean. As usual Pink Floyd's soundscapes cover an amazing dynamic range with crystal clear, strong and vibrant audio reproduction and this first pressing has a tremendous warm bass response (note the deep bass synth on the opening track).
On playback at a loud volume (which is how I always listen to my records prior to listing - and it's always a great pleasure to return to this one) there are no jumps, no sticks, no scratches, no surface noise (rare for this pressing with its many quiet passages) and barely any clicks/pops (really, hardly any and nothing continuous or ever intrusive). This is a beautifully clean pressing which is critically graded a strong EXCELLENT++ for audio - a really beautiful copy of this gorgeous LP - in my opinion, pretty hard to beat
SLEEVE: The original delicate, textured and rounded corner cover is also in very nice condition with clean, unmarked surfaces and only light rubbing to the top and bottom edges and spine - all text is clear and bold. A very fine example of this delicate sleeve - EXCELLENT
The Harvest inner bag is also in great condition - clean, bright and unmarked with no splits (just some discolouration caused by the glue used to fix the internal poly lining) and a punched hole to the bottom corner (quite what that's doing there I have no idea) - EXCELLENT

ALL OF MY RECORDS ARE POSTED IN PURPOSE MADE RECORD SLEEVES WITH CARDBOARD

IF AN ITEM REACHES A CERTAIN AMOUNT I WOULD STRONGLY RECOMMEND REGISTERED POST!

CHECK OUT MY OTHER ITEMS TO SAVE ON SHIPPING