Pink Floyd – Obscured By Clouds

Great album and great pressing : excellent dynamic, sound very accurate !

I just watched the old Live At Pompeii video again and noticed a conversation about how an early pressing of Obscured by Clouds had terrible sibilance that was fixed in later pressings.

I don’t understand- my record has “SW- 11078” and their listings have “ST- 11078” so somebody has a typo here. Either that, or I have an extremely rare record, and I doubt that.

My copy has 2 side B labels. Has anyone else seen that?

Looking for a nice cover only if anyone can help

This is a most excellent album. If you like Dark Side of the Moon you will *swear* this is the warm-up album to be played before spinning Dark Side.... The songwriting, melodies, instruments, singing and instruments as well as mixing and engineering values are identical to Dark Side released only a few months later. I've got it both on LP and CD - get the CD to avoid distractions of noise and pops and clicks, just like Dark Side

The pressings of the 2016 vinyl RI 180 gr. Are amazing, that‘s right. But the sound is terrible.
Flat, thin, 2D... Thank you Amazon for Refunding.

It seems as if there are two different "bands". One before and one after the Dark Side of the Moon. So different yet so marvelous both of them. Obscured by Clouds is a superb album.

This is my first post on here, but I have a UK first pressing of the title with matrix numbers that are 4020 A-1/B-1 and its a factory sample that is in NM condition, but the most odd thing of all is that IT HAS NO MOTHER STAMPERS AT ALL ON ONE SIDE! Has everyone heard of this?

At first glance, Pink Floyd's Obscured By Clouds kind of seems bland but once you look below the surface, it's actually a nice listen. Obscured By Clouds is often overlooked in Pink Floyd's brilliant discography as it was sort of just released in 1972 without that much attention and it was released in between two more popular pieces (Meddle, 1971 and The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973). Obviously everyone knows Dark Side was and still is a critical success and phenomenon. The band were already working on Dark Side when they were asked to record a soundtrack for an film by a director named Barbet Schroeder for the second time after they did one for his other film "More", which came out in 1969 and the album was released with the same name. Although this time, the band had a falling out with the filmmaking company so the album was just titled Obscured By Clouds and it was just written on the back of the cover that it was the soundtrack for "La Vallée".

The album starts out with two back to back instrumental tracks that tie into each other, the title track "Obscured By Clouds" and "When You're In". Then moves into a slower pace track called " Burning Bridges" with David Gilmour and Richard Wright on the vocals, first singing separately then in harmony and it's beautiful. After that is "The Gold It's In The...", not much to say about this one as it's not one of my favorites. Then comes another slower paced "Wots... Uh The Deal" which again, is really a good track. It flows into another slower instrumental titled "Mudmen" which, if you're listening on vinyl, closes out Side 1. Side 2 opens with a criminally underrated track called "Childhoods End" which is a brilliantly cynical track that almost sounds like floor plans for an album that Pink Floyd would release 5 years later titled "Animals", which is my favorite album by them. Then, it's a dark humor song titled "Free Four" and it's just a made to look happy sing along song that has lyrics that are too dark for a sing along. "Stay" is a track written and sung by Richard Wright, and is basically a odd-end love song that first sounds like the non-christmas version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" but then it sounds like a one night stand song. But nonetheless good. The album closes with "Absolutely Curtains" which starts out with a few minutes of instrumental music (different from the beginning of the album) then fades into singing by a large group of people, possibly from the film.

Overall, it's easy to dismiss or overlook this album but it's that type of music that needs a second or third listen to really get a good view of it. I think it's quite a good piece by the band and I recommend that of you're a fan of Pink Floyd and have never heard this album, that you might check it out. It may surprise you.