« Pink Floyd. long one of the most inventive of British groups struck new ground at Fillmore East with a 25-minute avant-garde work with the assistance of a 10-piece brass ensemble. a mixed choir of 20. and a conductor, Peter Phillips. The work, The Atomic Heart Mother, supplies the title and one side of Pink Floyd's next Harvest Records album. It occupied the second half of two shows. Sept. 27. In the opening segment of the first show, the four handily overcame technical problems, which could have been disastrous for less experienced groups, which rely so heavily on equipment. Lead guitarist Dave Gilmour performed yeoman service at one point, when the elaborate keyboard of Rick Wright. including electronic apparatus, went out. Bass guitarist Roger Waters was again brilliant on gong and also joined drummer Nick Mason on cymbals. "The Atomic Heart Mother." scoring with a young hip audience.
proved far more interesting than many contemporary works fed classically-oriented audiences. The brass work was fine, while the chorus. individually, grouped or all together tackled their difficult sections. mostly wordless, excellently. The four group members were exceptional, a tall order for so talented a foursome. For example, at one point. Mason played the strings of a grand piano, striking and plucking. while Gilmour aided Wright with a tricky electronic effects. The piece combined rock, jazz, soundtrack, classical and other elements. Pink Floyd continues a unique musical experience »
« Pink Floyd - Fillmore East, New York », Billboard, 10 October 1970
«Way back when the word ‘Underground’ was sleeping its prenatal sleep in the minds of mediamen the world over, a very weird British group released a single called “Arnold Layne.” Every Anglophile in this country (admittedly a weird lot themselves, but they were there first, Charlie) immediately freaked for the record because they were tuned in enough to know that this was music of a totally different color. It had taken the rest of the music world five years to catch up, folks, but finally last weekend that selfsame group alone minus, of course, Syd Barrett who left after the first LP) sold out the Fillmore twice on Sunday night attracting Leonard Bernstein in the process. In point of fact the group completely transformed the house. Everyone was there to hear the music and in that respect the audience was more like a New York Philharmonic crowd than it was a typical Fillmore gathering.
Pink Floyd have never compromised. They have been true to their musical vision, and have, more than any other group, been able to combine electronic and electric music in such a way as to give it life, ambience, and dynamics. The quartet fuses on stage so that, Dave Gilmore becomes the chiaroscuro sounds of the guitar, Roger Waters flows in throbbing dark bass patterns, Nick Mason rebounds from drumskin to bass pedal to cymbal with sticks and mallets, and Rick Wright stretches from wall to wall in deep throaty whispers that eddv in distant corners as, simultaneously, he screams, croons, shrieks, sighs all with the dancing hands that flash and dart like lightning over his keyboard. “Astronomy Domine” from the first album, on to “Fat Old Sun,” a new Dave Gilmore composition from the forthcoming LP that sounds bright and Autumnal and very Ray Daviesish, And then “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun,” in which Rick does just that, manipulating what looks like a stick-shift on the organ so that the sounds from his left hand continue to issue from the stage speakers, while the right hand figures float from speakers midway back to the right, then from the rear of the auditorium, then to the left, then the front, on and on in a whirling circle of energy. “Saucerful Of Secrets,” which ended the first half of the show consists, in the first movement, of a series of electronic and percussive crescendos reminiscent of Berio followed hy a warm hymnlike section that is as powerful as the Who’s “See Me, Peel Me” segment of “Tommy.” Here Roger forsakes his bass for a pair of large cymbals which he played with soft mallets, muting the sound to blend with the ‘cathedral’ organ, while Dave contrasted with sharp slide guitar figures.
After intermission Pink Floyd was joined by a brass orchestra and a voice choir for the thirty minute “Atomic Heart Mother,” which is the title track of their new LP. Immediately it was quite obvious that this composition and its execution were what the group had been working toward for some time. There was no battle between orchestra and group as to what style of music was to be played. It was Floyd Music all the way with total integration of all musicians into the flow of the music. The choir began with an alto aria over the contralto melody line followed by the introduction of the male baritone and basso voices. The amalgam of voices (which added terrific scope to the organ part) brass and electric instruments couldn’t have melded better and the work itself achieved a vulcanic intensity that electrified the audience.
Pink Floyd returned to the stage after fifteen solid minutes of wild rhythmic applause from the standing, cheering crowd. Smiling, David Gilmore said, “We’re absolutely knocked out by the response and would play more but we just can’t follow that number. Thank you and good night. And the audience cheered on »
« Pink Floyd », Cash Box, 10 October 1970
«The Fillmore East hosted the Pink Floyd on Sunday, September 27. Floyd goes back some four years in work together. Their basic product is and has been acid rock, and that implies some degree of rock-classical fusion. They are one of the most important and musical bands on the scene and represent, as do the Who, the Tony Williams Lifetime, the Mothers and a few others, what is going to happen in the 1970’s and ’80’s, I believe. Social classes are virtually gone from the Western world and music — all music — is going to fuse itself a major form of expression. That Pink Floyd, the Lifetime, and the Mothers don’t make perfect music is not the point. Music history is being made through their efforts. Pink Floyd continues to play excruciatingly loud music. With most loud bands the racket is so much wool meant for your eyes and calls for so much cotton for your ears. But Floyd’s decibels are part of their aesthetic and allow certain sonic-physical things to happen. Overtones, for example, are produced in certain of their chord clashes that wouldn’t speak without those amplitudes. The question “Wouldn’t they sound as good (or bad) with the amps turned down?” must be answered “no” for most of their tunes. They are one of the few truly untranscribable electric bands around. The Who and the Airplane could play most things softer, I think, but not Pink Floyd (although they show some fine soft songs on their new album, and I wished at the Fillmore that they’d have mixed some of them in). Ironically also, they don’t seem to play any fast music, but say it through the sort of majestical, British, minor-mode, slow road. Floyd is very British, by the way, and lays down the model harmony and simple line which characteristically has accompanied English folk and Romantic orchestral music.
The spotlight work a week ago Sunday was a long rock band-brass ensemble-choir number called “Atomic Heart Mother.” New York composer Peter Phillips conducted and brought down some thrilling moments upon a house which seemed to dig it to the last note. It’s a pretty handsome piece — more classically oriented and showing less waste matter than the Who’s “Tommy” but containing no discernible hit tunes. Their best stuff for me were the strange, still electronic passages, although the opening brass writing almost made it rhythmically to the land of something new. What they did bring off better than any fusion organization I’ve heard were the brilliant transitions from section to .section and from style to style. For example, at one point the choir, singing on “ah” (which is usually an insurmountably naive choral move), came out of a classical kind of thing, and lead guitarist Dave Gilmour started the rock jam so slyly by screeching in on the soprano’s last note so that the ear was hardly aware of the take over. Gilmour also made some gorgeous slide guitar comments over the evening. James Buffington, French hornist from the brass ensemble, also soloed powerfully in “Heart Mother.” I didn’t like the folkish melody the Floyd based the work around, and they’ve still got some work to do on the fusion thing. When you fuse with classical or jazz music, with which « historical period of jazz or classical should you choose to fuse? They didn’t seem to have their minds totally made up on that in this piece, but they’re probably running pretty close to the front of everybody else having a go at it. The Floyd EMI recording is very nice, by the way. I’m keeping my ear on them anyway»
«Rifts», The Village Voice, 8 October 1970
