Pink Floyd "Meddle" Harvest SHVL 795 UK 1st A3/B1 text. sleeve "gramophone" 1971

	£		45
	$		60

Pink Floyd ? "Meddle" Harvest ?SHVL 795  UK 1st press. Vinyl, LP, housed in a gate-fold sleeve and released in 1971 with green Harvest labels and a fully textured sleeve. The labels have "The Gramophone Co Ltd" on the outside.
The vinyl has a couple of surface marks but played through beautifully on my elderly stereo - no hop, stick or jump, and just an occasional slight crackle between tracks. The textured gate-fold sleeve shows minimal signs of wear (apart from knocks to some of the corners) - no rips or writing. The spine is intact and legible. Matrix / Runout Side 1 : SHVL 795 A -3 Matrix / Runout Side 2 : SHVL 795 B - 1U 
"Meddle" is Pink Floyd's sixth studio album, released on 31 October 1971 by Harvest Records. It was produced between the band's touring commitments, from January to August 1971. The album was recorded at a series of locations around London, including Abbey Road Studios and Morgan Studios.
With no material to work with and no clear idea of the album's direction, the group devised a series of novel experiments which eventually inspired the album's signature track, "Echoes". Although many of the band's later albums would be unified by a central theme with lyrics written mainly by Roger Waters, "Meddle" was a group effort with lyrical contributions from each member, and is considered a transitional album between the Syd Barrett-influenced group of the late 1960s and the emerging Pink Floyd. The cover has been explained by its creator, Storm Thorgerson, to be an ear underwater. As with several previous albums designed by Hipgnosis, though, Thorgerson was unhappy with the final result.
The album was well-received by music critics upon its release. However, despite being commercially successful in the United Kingdom, lackluster publicity on the part of their United States-based label led to poor sales there upon initial release.
On release, "Meddle" received generally positive reviews from music critics. Rolling Stone's Jean-Charles Costa wrote: "Meddle not only confirms lead guitarist David Gilmour's emergence as a real shaping force with the group, it states forcefully and accurately that the group is well into the growth track again", and the NME called it "an exceptionally good album". Steve Peterson of Hit Parader cited "Fearless" as its best song and said of the album, "This has got to be their best ever." Ed Kelleher of Circus called it "another masterpiece by a masterful group", noting "Fearless" as "fascinating" and praising "Echoes" as "a tone poem that allows all four group members much time to stretch their muscles". However, Melody Maker was more reserved, describing it as "a soundtrack to a non-existent movie".
In Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said "Meddle" was a fairly good progression over the group's previous work and featured folk songs highlighted by unique melodies, although he lamented the lyrics to "A Pillow of Winds": "The word 'behold' should never cross their filters again". In his critique of "Echoes", he believed the lyrics imitate "Across the Universe" by the Beatles but over 23 minutes of music that flows with a "timeless calm" similar to "Interstellar Overdrive". Daryl Easlea of BBC felt it is a similar, but more consistent and tuneful version of "Atom Heart Mother" highlighted by "Echoes", which he said "dominates the entire work" and is "everything right about progressive rock; engaging, intelligent and compelling". In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Rob Sheffield said "Echoes" showed Pink Floyd to be a more developed group than before, "coloring the slow guitar ripples with deep-in-the-studio sonic details that only the truly baked would notice, much less appreciate." Writing for AllMusic, editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine called "Meddle" the best album from their transitional years leading up to "The Dark Side of the Moon", as it "spends most of its time with sonic textures and elongated compositions, most notably on its epic closer, 'Echoes'". He noted a "uniform tone", but not song structure, and wrote of the album's significance in the group's catalogue: "Pink Floyd were nothing if not masters of texture, and "Meddle" is one of their greatest excursions into little details, pointing the way to the measured brilliance of "Dark Side of the Moon" and the entire Roger Waters era."