Meddle

Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

But bottle, where does the connection to Coil fit in? Pink Floyd's album covers were designed by the art collective Hipgnosis. Remember that weird zydeco infused thing by Hapshash and the Colored Coat. Yeah, a design house focused on album art. A group of artists making steady money from labels by doing real design work (something major corporations take away by monopolizing the production process and preventing artists from freely working with other artists). Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson himself didn't make any Pink Floyd covers that i know of, but he was a member of that collective. He was also in Throbbing Gristle then formed Coil with his superfan turned boyfriend, John Balance. It's a small world after all.

Somewhere in the middle of the Atom Heart Mother tour they realized they had absolutely no idea what they should do next. So, they experimented with various ways to waste everyone at Abbey Road Studio's time and energy and patience. Execs popped by once in a while with booze and pot, but eventually the boys decided that the antiquated 8-track equipment was the problem, and took their accumulated bleeps and bloops to smaller studios with newer equipment that would let them build pieces in smaller sections and use them like legos.

Third times a charm? It is basically the same album as Ummagumma and Atom, big thing on one side, other stuff on the other. Prog-rock is starting to feel a little formulaic, at least from an "i dunno what to do next" perspective. How many more albums until Waters starts taking it personal?

But, wow, what an album. Crappy American promotional efforts aside, i think we all in retrospect hear this as the first monumental musical statement from the band. It's epic. It's unbelievably good, as in how did these mortals make such magic when we know full well they were just twisting knobs to see what they did? Fantastic. Yep, just step back and listen to them work, because we haven't even made it to the stuff they're going to make on purpose.

Oh yeah, the cover is supposed to be an ear under water, but Storm Thorgerson thought he did a crappy job of turning his own idea into reality. Yin/yang, win some lose some, i think an actual ear would look pretty dumb, to be honest. And because i can't resist, fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd, indeed.

Obscured by something

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