Atom Heart Mother

It reached number 1 in Britain and number 55 in the United States, where it went Gold. Side one is the title suite, built from instrumental figures the band wrote in rehearsal, one of which Gilmour had called Theme from an Imaginary Western. It was the first recording on the studio's new eight-track one-inch machine and EMI console, and because EMI would not allow tape splicing, Waters and Mason played bass and drums through the whole 23-minute piece in one sitting. The band then handed the backing tracks to Ron Geesin, who wrote the orchestral arrangement and co-composed the piece. The EMI Pops Orchestra brass and the 16-piece John Alldis Choir take most of the lead lines. The suite was first called The Amazing Pudding. It got its title when the band needed a name for a BBC Radio 1 broadcast on 16 July 1970 and found an Evening Standard headline, Atom Heart Mother Named, about a woman fitted with a plutonium-powered pacemaker.

Side two follows the Ummagumma plan of individual contributions: If by Waters, Summer '68 by Wright and Fat Old Sun by Gilmour. It closes with Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast, credited to the whole group, in which the roadie Alan Styles prepares and eats breakfast. The record ends with a dripping tap that plays on in the run-out groove. The Hipgnosis cover shows a Holstein cow, with no band name or title. The band asked for something plain, and Storm Thorgerson photographed the first cow he saw near Potters Bar. Its owner named her Lulubelle III.

Live and reception

The band performed the suite at the Bath Festival on 27 June 1970 and in Hyde Park on 18 July 1970, both times with the John Alldis Choir and the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. Touring with a full brass section and choir lost money, and the last performance of the suite was on 22 May 1972 in Amsterdam. Rolling Stone's Alec Dubro was negative in 1970. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it the most impenetrable album the band released on Harvest. Gilmour called it a load of rubbish, and Waters said in 1984 that he would not play it even for a million pounds. Stanley Kubrick asked to use the title track in A Clockwork Orange and the group refused permission.