MORE (OST)

Well, I believe I can add another perspective to this judgement.

To evaluate "More" in its own terms you must listen to the boolegs from the 1969-1971 period, specially 1969 when the infamous "The Man & The Journey", the two pieces that compound the "More furious madness from the Massed Gadget of Auximenes" work were played on stage night after night (more or less the way they would do with DSOTM in 1972). With the exception of a rework of "celestial voices" (the last part of "A saucerful of secrets", the one with that sublime organ from the late Richard Wright) and Pow.R. Toc.H. (from their debut) this long-and-brand-new piece never was officialy released, although almost all of its sections were released separated in the 1969 Floyd studio albums. Some of them made it on the studio side from Umagumma (The narrow way pt. 3, The Grand vizier's garden party) , others in the Relics compilation (Biding my time & Careful with that axe Eugene). And two of the best ones were released in a somehow "straight" form in "Music from More", Green is the colour and Cymbaline.

For your own good: do a quick google search looking for Pink Floyd's The man & the Journey in Amsterdam's Concertgebow 1969 and listen carefully to this piece. Then you maybe will apreciate more this album as a collection of incidental music with a lot of masterworks in the cocoon. The "More" versions of the songs quoted above are pale in comparison to the live ones, boh of them getting weight dramatically in the live set.

But there are other not-so-evident gems in this awkward colection of pieces: Cirrus Minor is a delicate and somber ballad that quotes a variaton of Celestial Voices' organ. The Nile Song is a play, a kind of joke like Medle's Saint Tropez (although far better than the last). The Crying song is another sad and melancolic ballad. Then came the first surprise: Up the Khyber, an instrumental interplay between Wright & Mason that we rarely hear in Pink Floyd. A sort of jazzy jam that reminds me the Soft Machine a little, very peculiar and interesting.

After that came the center of the album as you can judge by the reviewer's common sense: Green is the colour & Cymbaline. Although they are beautiful I prefer the live versions as said above. And side one closes with a senseless little percussion and flute theme.

Side two is the weirdest one. The opening "Main theme from More" is one of the most obscure gems in Pink Floyd's catalogue. I just love the interplay of the instruments. Richard Wrigh shines a lot here. This piece was played alive in a couple of shows and its worth looking for the boots with it.

Ibiza bar is another take on The Nile Song. More Blues is just a... bluesy number that sometimes closed their set in the early 70's. "Quicksilver" is a experiment on electronics and effects, interesting but not great. "A spanish piece" is a fake spanish guitar melody with some words in spanish. And the last piece is a revision of the Main theme with more guitar.

Well, very irregular album, don't you think? But I believe its Ups are far high then its downs. I understand that the not-passionate about Pink Floyd can't stand to More, but anyone with interest in the shaping of their sound have here and in Ummagumma's studio side a lot of things to discover.

For me, a Floyd fan that has his main interest in the 68-73 period of the group's music this is a must have, easy 4 stars. But for the regular prog lover it can seem just Good. So 3,5 stars (I mean 4).

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