Yes, it’s meant to be that blurry.

Following the relative success of More, Barbet Schroder and Pink Floyd decided to collaborate again on Schroeder’s next film, La Vallée, about the wife of a French diplomat to Australia who has a transformative experience in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. Unlike More I don’t know a damn thing about this movie and I’m a little curious about it. Anyway, the time to compose and record the soundtrack happened to have the unfortunate luck to come between the twin jewels of the Pink Floyd catalogue, Echoes and the undeniable Dark Side of the Moon and the band basically shit it out in two months so they could get back to working on Dark Side, and had a falling out with Schroeder about it, which is why this album is not called La Vallée. I had nicer-sounding things to say about aMLoR yesterday but that’s not because I don’t like this album better. Despite its relatively limited ambitions, OBC just scratches an itch for me, its stoner-rock-country jam feel is something I vibe with. I seldom put this album on but when I do I tend to unwind pretty well with it. If aMLoR was Pink Floyd channeling Phil Collins, this is Pink Floyd channeling Jerry Garcia, and friends, I love the Dead.

As far as highlights, try the opening and titular track on for size, as well as the charmingly Beatles-y “Wot’s… Uh the Deal?”, “Childhood’s End”, which to my ear predates a lot of ideas we’ll hear again on Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, and Animals, and “Free Four”, the first song in the catalogue in which Roger Waters reflects on his complicated relationship with the early death of his father and his feelings of isolation that will go on to define the Floyd for the rest of his tenure as bandleader. The thing that stands out most about this album, you can probably tell, is that it’s the Floyd calling their shot: in it you can hear a little taste of everything they would do during their subsequent, most successful era.