Oil Well Bootlegs - RSC CD: Pink Floyd – White Witch Oil Well

Pink Floyd – White Witch
Oil Well – RSC 071 CD

1 Cymbaline 13:03
2 Atom Heart Mother 31:49
3 A Saucerful Of Secrets 21:11
Total Time 66:07

Note:
All songs by Waters/ Wright/ Mason/ Gilmour unless noted
Live in Montreaux, CH - September 18/19, 1971 - Vol. 2

Lineup:
Nick Mason (drums)
David Gilmour (guitar)
Roger Waters (bass)
Richard Wright (keyboards)

This album is a clone of: "Live In Montreux 1971" - The Swingin' Pig – TSP-CD-071-2 - CD2
This Oil Well version has a fine cover, fine quality.
Limited to 200 copies only. Due to its rarity and good quality, this disc is recommended.

Pink Floyd’s performance at the Festival de Musique in Montreux, Switzerland on September 18, 1971 has two recordings available, the first to circulate is actually considered recorder 2 and is an excellent soundboard recording, it has been released many times before on titles Black Wizard (Oil Well RSC 070) and its companion piece White Witch (Oil Well RSC 071), Live In Montreux 1971 (The Swingin’ Pig TSP-CD-071-2), Plays Montreux (Highland HL 476/477) all of which tended to run too slow.
Read below for more informations!
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Atom Heart Mother World Tour
The Atom Heart Mother World Tour was an international concert tour by Pink Floyd. It commenced during September 1970 and ended during October 1971. It marked the first time the band visited countries such as Japan and Australia. Intended to promote their new album Atom Heart Mother, the band hired local orchestras and choirs on some dates to perform the title piece while performing it in a four-piece arrangement on other occasions.

Early in 1970, Pink Floyd performed at gigs a piece from their film soundtrack for Michelangelo Antonioni's film Zabriskie Point referred to as "The Violent Sequence". This was the musical basis for "Us and Them", from their The Dark Side of the Moon album. Lacking only the lyrics, it is identical to the final song[1] and is the earliest part of the seminal album to have been performed live. The song "Embryo" was also a part of the live repertoire around this time, but was never to appear on a studio album until the compilation album Works.

On 17 January 1970, the band began performing a then untitled instrumental piece, which would eventually become the title track to their next album Atom Heart Mother. At this point, it had no orchestra or choir accompaniment. This is the first time they performed a song live in an unfinished form as a work in progress, something they continued to do until 1975. The song officially debuted at the Bath Festival, Somerset England on 27 June 1970 under the title "The Amazing Pudding" (later the name of a Pink Floyd fanzine) and for the first time with orchestra and choir accompaniment.

Announced as "The Atom Heart Mother" by legendary British broadcaster John Peel on his BBC Radio 1 show "Peel's Sunday Concert" on 16 July 1970, a name suggested by him to the band, it was also announced as "The Atomic Heart Mother" two days later at the Hyde Park free concert. Partly due to the difficulties of finding and hiring local orchestras and choirs, the band often played what is referred to as the "small band" version of the song when they performed it live.

Canterbury festival
Pink Floyd also appeared at a free festival in Canterbury on August 31, which was filmed. This was the end leg of the Medicine Ball Caravan tour organised by Warner Brothers, which was later made into a film of the same name. It appears that the Pink Floyd footage was not included in the movie but spectators report that Atom Heart Mother was part of the set that was recorded. The audience must have been one of the smallest to see Pink Floyd at this era, only 1500 were present as the festival was not widely promoted.

In contrast, over 500,000 people witnessed their show at Fête de L'Humanité, Paris on 12 September 1970, their largest crowd ever. Filmed by French TV, the show was never broadcast.

Experimental on the album Atom Heart Mother, the song "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" was performed at a few gigs in December 1970. "Breakfast" being made was part of the song. The first part of this lasted around four minutes. The second part of "breakfast" preparation was around a minute followed by a 3-minute tape of British DJ Jimmy Young, whom the band disliked. The song lasted a little over 24 minutes.

Labyrinths Of Coral Caves (Sigma 18)
Pavillion de Montreux, Montreux, Switzerland – September 18th, 1971
Pink Floyd’s appearance at the Festival de Musique Classique in Montreux, Switzerland on the evening of September 18th, 1971 kicked off their third (and shortest) European tour for the year, which consisted of back-to-back concerts in Montreux, a show in Stockholm, Sweden on the 22nd, and one more in Copenhagen, Denmark the 23rd.The setlists for all of these shows were comprised of nothing but the lengthy epics, as “Green Is The Colour,” the one brief respite from the extended excursions performed during the shows earlier that year had been dropped, making for a somewhat challenging listening experience for the uninitiated but a real treat for Floyd fanatics!

The wonderfully titled Labyrinths Of Coral Caves offers up the complete uncut performance at the correct speed including all tune-ups, announcements, and audience reactions. Previous silver pressings of this concert include a pair of releases Black Wizard (RSC 070) and White Witch (RSC 071) from Oil Well (that separated the performance into two halves), Live In Montreux 1971 (TSP-CD-071-2) on The Swingin’ Pig Records, and Plays Montreux (HL 476/477) from Highland. Although the sound quality on all of these titles is very good, most of these have a tendency to run about 5% slow, and given most are quite old/out-of-print, along with Sigma’s reputation for being the premier Floyd label, this is an excellent opportunity to add this gig to your collection in what is essentially its definitive form.

This recording tends to emphasize the high and upper-mid frequencies, so while it sounds a bit thin at times, there’s none of the low-end distortion that sometimes clutters recordings from this era and all of the instruments are audible – the only drawback is that during some of the louder passages, Gilmour’s rhythm guitar is lost in the background (particularly on disc 1), but we DO get an interesting perspective with the bass guitar and keyboards being rather prominent (in a good way) throughout. The Swiss audience is extremely quiet during the performances, which is a huge plus – clearly everyone is listening attentively and very respectful, even during the often laborious tune-ups.

The band delivers a good performance that makes for a rather “cosmic” listening experience exemplified by “Careful With That Axe Eugene,” and “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” (which unfortunately has 2 seconds of startling feedback at the 10:37 mark and is a bit of a “mood killer”) – both of which are filled with aural drama and trippy atmospheres. Occasionally, the band sounds a bit fatigued or tentative (particularly during the opener “Echoes”), but overall it’s an enjoyable listen.

One of the highlights is a fantastic rendition of “Cymbaline” that spearheads an upturn on the enthusiasm front with great vocal work from Gilmour and the “footsteps” section is very clear. Though the balance between instruments improved after “Echoes,” things really come together in that regard during “Cymbaline.”

I know many folks tend to prefer the small band version of “Atom Heart Mother,” but the choir really does sound driven/intense on this recording, and about 20 minutes in there’s a great avant-garde passage with “pings” recalling “Echoes” just before the recapitulation. This really stands out for me and would easily be at home on any sci-fi or horror movie soundtrack! The audience obviously really enjoyed this performance given their cacophonous applause at it’s conclusion – clearly the strongest reaction of the entire show.

Some reviewers in the past have complained that this version of “A Saucerful Of Secrets” is “grating” or otherwise tedious, but given the infrequency of a good complete performance of this brilliant work, Sigma’s subtle mastering job, and the band cutting loose a bit more on this one, I respectively disagree. Being a fan of deep space rock, I think this interpretation contains one of the more enjoyable “Syncopated Pandemonium” sections, but then again, what one listener finds fascinating/experimental, another pans as noise…

When all is said and done, despite being a somewhat subdued performance overall, it is clear, complete and Sigma have done a fine job as usual. If you’re a casual collector looking for a good quality 1971 performance that is free of cuts/drop-outs/warbles/low-end distortion, get it! If you’re a Floyd enthusiast, you should already have it in one form or another, however, it just doesn’t get better than Sigma – sometimes the improvements are profound and other times slight (this being of the latter variety considering the quality of past releases being very good already, speed issues aside), but make no mistake, this is another fine release from THE top Floyd-oriented label bar none!