Pink Floyd – Soundtrack To The Film
Zabriskie Point
(soniclovenoize reconstruction)
Side A:
1. Heart Beat, Pig Meat
2. Country Song
3. Fingal’s Cave
4. Crumbling Land
5. Alan’s Blues
Side B:
6. Oenone
7. Rain In The Country
8. Come In Number 51,
Your Time Is Up
While doing research for my trilogy of Syd Barrett &
Pink Floyd re-imagined albums, I stumbled upon an album I was unfamiliar with
and some have called “The Great Lost Pink Floyd Album.” While I can’t say that it’s truly ‘great’ per
se, it is indeed an album that never was and I grew particularly interested in
reconstructing it, as others have done before me. And so here it is, a reconstruction of the proposed
and subsequently withdrawn 1970 Pink Floyd album Soundtrack To The Film
Zabriskie Point.
1969 was a hit and miss year for Pink Floyd. Obviously searching for a signature sound
beyond Syd Barrett’s psychedelic pop, the band spent the year touring and composing
conceptual sound experiments, finally releasing their double studio/live album
Ummagumma to represent (what they thought was) the best of that era. Aside from this, Pink Floyd had recorded the
soundtrack to Barbet Schroder’s film More, and it’s soundtrack album of original
music was released that summer. But that
was not the only soundtrack the band composed in 1969; Pink Floyd had also
recorded the music for Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Zabriskie Point in a specific
recording session in November 1969.
Although they recorded an album’s worth of material, only a few songs
were ultimately used in the film and the accompanying soundtrack, in which Antonioni
vied for selections from a number of artists aside from Pink Floyd. The remainder of the original Pink Floyd recordings
was left in the vaults, heard only on bootlegs and subsequent fan
reconstructions.
Aside from some previously unheard bonus tracks on the
official Zabriskie Point Rhino reissue in 1997, a great leap forward was taken
by Magna Qualitas Records for their anthology A Total Zabriskie Point of View
and their own album reconstruction 370 Roman Yards. Allegedly, they were able to obtain copies of
tape-box notation showing the tentative tracklist for Pink Floyd’s proposed Zabriskie
Point album, as well as firsthand accounts of the sessions, and their
reconstruction attempted to follow as closely as possible to that. While MQR has done a great job researching
the material, I disagree to the methodology of construction for their Zabriskie
Point; they often chose historical accuracy over simple sonic clarity (overuse
of EQ to inferior source tapes). As the
use of release-worthy source material is my primary concern, my construction
was a bit different, although I followed MQR’s blueprint from their fantastic
research.
My reconstruction of Zabriskie Point begins with “Heart Beat,
Pig Meat” and is then followed by “Country Song”, both taken from the Rhino reissue
of the official album. For the sake of
audio clarity, I avoided using the familiar version of “Fingal’s Cave” because
there is simply no quality source material to my standards. Instead, I used the track with the working
title “Take Off (version II)” from disc 1 of TZPV because it shares extremely similar
musical characteristics and motifs as “Fingal’s Cave” (short heavy psychedelic track
in the key of E major), not to mention that both pieces were meant for the same
scene! With this information in mind, it’s
obvious to me that “Take Off (version II)” is simply an alternate “Fingal’s
Cave” and the two should be considered interchangeable. My choice of “Fingal’s Cave” is hard edited
into “Crumbling Land” from the Rhino reissue, as intended by Pink Floyd and
featured in the film. Side A concludes
with an unedited version of “Alan’s Blues” (previously known as “Love Scene 6”)
from the Rhino reissue. Although MQR
went to great lengths to digitally remove reverb and create presumed edit points
to match a specific runtime, I felt the full seven and a half minute track
sounded good enough for me!
The shorter side B begins with “Oenone” and it was a tedious
task to find an appropriate take for my reconstruction. I eventually chose the “full mix” of “Love
Scene 2” from disc 2 of TZPV since it featured the longest length and the most
sonic elements. The track was faded out
after the orgasmic climax six minutes in, effectively removing the inappropriate
post-coital laughter and one-liners from the band. My reconstruction ends with “Rain in the
Country” (known as “Unknown Song”) followed by “Come In Number 51, Your Time Is
Up”, both from the Rhino reissue. The
final touch is my original cover art, made to resemble its sister album, Soundtrack
To The Film More.
The result is a more concise 38-minute album than other
Zabriskie Point fan reconstructions, and a more sonically pristine assemblage
than MQR’s novel attempt. While
certainly not the greatest Pink Floyd album—and one can understand why it was
never released—the Soundtrack To The Film Zabriskie Point seems to stay close
to my heart and holds a lot of air time on my music player. The album showcases a series of snapshots of
Pink Floyd genre-hopping, including individual songs that each play upon their diverse
range of strengths and influences: experimental found-sound collage; heavy
psychedelic rock; electric blues; atmospheric psychedelia; acoustic folk. There is a bit of everything thrown in the
mix, yet the album works as a whole, more so than their previous and
equally-diverse soundtrack album for the film More. Although largely instrumental, the two
song-based gems “Country Song” and “Crumbling Land” are stand-out tracks that
could rank as high as any of the Pink Floyd singles from the 1960s. Soundtrack To The Film Zabriskie Point
has something for everyone and shows the essential continuity in between
Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother.
Sources used:
Various Artists - Zabriskie Point (1997 Rhino reissue)
Pink Floyd – Total Zabriskie Point of View (bootleg, 2011 Magna
Qualitas Records)
flac --> wav --> editing in SONAR & Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8
*md5, artwork and tracknotes included