Obscured By Clouds

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Artist:	Obscured By Clouds
Title:	Bleed
Label:	Rainforest Records
Length(s):	42 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1999
Month of review:	04/2000

Line up

William Weikart - vocals, guitar
Ray Woods - mellotron, keyboards
Roger Freibel - percussion

Tracks

1)	Bleed	6.20
2)	Fearless	3.04
3)	Pigs On The Wing	2.37
4)	Cirrus Minor	3.57 MP3 or RealAudio
5)	Breathe	3.15
6)	Julia Dream	3.54
7)	Crystal Ship	2.23
8)	Cymbaline	3.34
9)	That's The Way	4.40
10)	Bleed (long Version)	8.33

Summary

The name of the band and some of the titles already indicate it: this band has a connection to Pink Floyd. They also have a website that you might want to visit.

The music

Bleed is the opening track. It opens slowly with acoustics. The melody is really good here and the use of mellotron is beautiful. I however did hear some strange interference on the cd. Not loud but audible, a bit of a rustling sound. On my own machine the noise level was quite high (with >16Khz wide open). On another, better one without an equalizer it was hardly audible. The music on this track continues to be soft and quiet and like Floyds music on the low key side. This also holds for Fearless ands Pigs On The Wing. William Weikart has a down sounding voice and the acoustic guitar and the carpets of keyboards give the music a funeral like characteristic. A nice trick in here is the disappearance of the vocalist into something of a vault making his voice sound gradually more hollow. The conclusion on organ is full of warmth and feeling. Breathe is the first track that is recognizably Pink Floyd (although the previous tracks are all covers, with the exception of Bleed). From the psychedelic era of Pink Floyd we have Julia Dream. It is striking that all these tracks have been made so much their own by Obscured By Clouds. This is not the plain replaying of the songs, but showing that these pieces stand up in their nakedness. This also holds for the Doors composition Crystal Ship in which percussion plays a large role. It is hardly noticeable that there are different bands responsible for these songs. Cymbaline signifies a return to the Pink Floyd compositions. Like on Breathe, the song sounds like "PF". That's The Way is the next one up. This is a Led Zeppelin track and for me the least pleasing of the tracks on this album, mostly because of the yeah-he-heah part. The album concludes with a long version of Bleed, the only self penned piece (but in all responsible for 15 minutes of the 42 that this album is long). For it I refer you to the first track.

It was unfortunate that I could not compare the originals with these new version, because my record player is broken and most of the music I have only on vinyl. The only ones I could compare were the versions of Fearless. I tend to prefer the version of OBC for this one, because I don't like the intro that much and they have skipped it (you know the part that is quite dominant in the Fish cover of this same track).

Conclusion

An album of pleasing music, brought in a strictly introspective way. The acoustic guitar, percussion and for melody the keyboards and mellotron make for a consistent cover album in which the new compositions hardly strike one as being of lesser quality. For proggers the music may be a bit too standard in the sense that there are no breaks, no flashy musicianship or bombastic passage on keyboards. It is however remarkably mature.