PINK FLOYD "Obscured By Clouds" 1972 UK 1st PRESSING

	£		30
	$		40

  PINK FLOYD "Obscured By Clouds" 1972 UK 1st PRESSING GRAM CO RIM TEXT, TEXTURED G&L COVER, SUPERB RICH AUDIO
PINK FLOYD
Obscured By Clouds
Music from 'LA VALLEE'

ORIGINAL UK HARVEST (SHSP 4020) FIRST PRESSING (June 1972) OF PINK FLOYD'S "Obscured By Clouds" LP
BASED ON THEIR SOUNDTRACK TO BARBET SCHROEDER'S FILM "La Vallee"

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 MID-WEIGHT VINYL WHICH DELIVERS ABSOLUTELY SENSATIONAL AUDIO REPRODUCTION (nice LOUD cut on these first pressings)
THE RECORD HAS THE FIRST ISSUE HARVEST YELLOW/GREEN LABELS WITH "THE GRAMOPHONE CO LTD..." RIM TEXT (later changed to "EMI RECORDS" in 1974)
MARTIX: SHPS 4020 A-2 / SHPS 4020 B-2
MOTHERS/STAMPERS: 1/GL and 3/RO
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 INNER SLEEVE (which is now a bit of a rarity in itself)

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)" 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 and BRIGHT with some light spindle traces - the LP has been moderately played but it has also been extremely well cared for
VINYL Visual: The vinyl surfaces themselves still retains their original DEEP, GLOSSY SHEEN with just a couple of light marks but these have little audio consequence (please see detailed audio assessment below)
VINYL Audio: The audio is absolutely OUTSTANDING. As usual Pink Floyd's soundscapes cover an AMAZING dynamic range with CRYSTAL CLEAR, STRONG and BEAUTIFULLY VIBRANT audio reproduction. This first pressing has a TREMENDOUS DEEP, RICH SOUND WITH A FANTASTIC BASS RESPONSE and on playback at a LOUD volume there are NO jumps, NO sticks, NO scratches and only a few minor light 'ticks' otherwise, the record plays just about as silently as vinyl possibly can (on its many quieter, softer passages). Critically graded a strong EXCELLENT+ for audio this is a very, very nice copy indeed
SLEEVE: The original delicate, TEXTURED and ROUNDED corner cover is also in EXCELLENT+ condition with hardly any wear to speak of on either the edges or spine - where all text is CLEAR and BOLD and the surfaces are CLEAN and UNRUBBED. There is a (very) small crease to the top opening edge but it's very minor - a very fine example of this incredibly easily worn sleeve
The Harvest inner bag is also in SUPERB condition - CLEAN, BRIGHT and UNMARKED with NO splits

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