Pink Floyd to Release Special Edition of Atom Heart Mother
Special two-disc package includes rare Japan 1971 concert footage
Originally released in October 1970, Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother remains one of the band’s most adventurous and psychedelic studio endeavors.
And on December 8th, a special edition of the fifth Pink Floyd LP will be made available on Sony Music as a special two-disc package in a 7-inch gatefold sleeve, containing the Atom Heart Mother album on CD and a Blu-ray disc featuring footage of “Atom Heart Mother” (Suite) performed at Hakone Aphrodite Festival, Japan on August 6, 1971 – originally released as part of The Early Years box set. The film has been upgraded from a recently discovered original tape of the time. It also includes a behind the scenes mini-documentary.
Originally only released in Japan in 2021, the set contains memorabilia from the event, including a special photo book containing many rare, never-seen-before photos as well as reproductions of the pamphlet, the poster, the concert ticket and the flier distributed at the event.
The only Pink Floyd footage at Hakone Aphrodite that exists is that of the 16-minute-long suite “Atom Heart Mother.” The details including whereabouts of the master film and how it was shot had been a mystery for a long time. However, after fifty years, the original 16mm film of this video was discovered in a fan’s garage. The meticulous processes of digitizing, restoring and remastering was undertaken and finally this enhanced video will be released outside of Japan.
Over 50 years ago, Japan’s first international outdoor rock festival Hakone Aphrodite was held at a specially built venue beside Hakone Ashinoko Lake on August 6th and 7th, 1971. Pink Floyd’s first ever concert in Japan was as headliner for the festival. It wanted to be the Japanese Woodstock, and wound up becoming the first rock festival experience for music audiences in Japan.
The set contains not only the original live footage (with audio taken from the gig at Hakone Aphrodite), but also behind-the-scenes footage of the band, travelling between the airport, the hotel, the press conference, the bullet train, the show set-up, and, of course, beautiful Japanese scenery.
Aside from “Atom Heart Mother,” Floyd performed five other songs at Hakone Aphrodite, including “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”, “A Saucerful Of Secrets” and “Echoes,” the group’s magnum space rock opus which would appear on their next album Meddle. But despite bootleg audio of the band’s entire performance in Japan being available, it was decided not to be included in this special edition for some reason. I personally think it would have been cool if they included the audience audio, which isn’t that bad for an audience capture, on a second CD to get the whole experience warts and all.
Nonetheless, this upgraded version of Atom Heart Mother should be a big one on Classic Rock Dad’s Xmas wish list this year, and you can pre-order it here.
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