Ron Geesin and Roger WatersMusic From The BodyFilm soundtrack
Recorded: January - September 1970
Released: 28 November 1970
BandRon Geesin (guitar, cello, keyboards, other instruments)
Roger Waters (guitar, bass)
David Gilmour (guitar on "Give Birth to a Smile")
Richard Wright (organ on "Give Birth to a Smile")
Nick Mason (drums on "Give Birth to a Smile")
Uncredited female chorus (backing vocals on "Give Birth to a Smile")
All tracks authored by Ron Geesin, except where noted.
Side A1. Our Song
(Geesin, Waters) (1:24)
2. Sea Shell and Stone
(Waters) (2:17)
3. Red Stuff Writhe (1:11)
4. A Gentle Breeze Blew Through Life (1:19)
5. Lick Your Partners (:35)
6. Bridge Passage for Three Plastic Teeth (:35)
7. Chain of Life
(Waters) (3:59)
8. The Womb Bit
(Geesin, Waters) (2:06)
9. Embryo Thought (:39)
10. March Past of the Embryos (1:08)
11. More Than Seven Dwarfs in Penis-Land (2:03)
12. Dance of the Red Corpuscles (2:04)
Side B1. Body Transport
(Geesin, Waters) (3:16)
2. Hand Dance - Full Evening Dress (1:01)
3. Breathe
(Waters) (2:53)
4. Old Folks Ascension (3:47)
5. Bed-Time-Dream-Clime (2:02)
6. Piddle in Perspex (:57)
7. Embryonic Womb-Walk (1:14)
8. Mrs. Throat Goes Walking (2:05)
9. Sea Shell and Soft Stone
(Geesin, Waters) (2:05)
10. Give Birth to a Smile
(Waters) (2:49)
ReviewThis is almost entirely a Ron Geesin album, as Ron's tracks are by far the most plentiful and the most interesting on here. It's interesting to hear his style alone, rather than as the orchestral and choral additions to Atom Heart Mother, and I'm really beginning to gain an appreciation for how creative he was as an independent composer. Roger's few tracks on the album, by comparison, are fairly plain acoustic pieces, comparable to Grantchester Meadows and If.
It's easy to see Ron's influence on Several Small Species (from
Ummagumma) too, particularly in More Than Seven Dwarfs in Penis-Land, which is entirely composed of many overdubbed vocal parts, making up a chorus of what are apparently supposed to be dwarves. Ron's material otherwise mainly comes in the form of eccentric compositions involving conventional instruments, usually some combination of banjo, mandolin and cello, with the occasional piano. It's difficult to pick favourites because the album is obviously intended as a piece; most tracks either segue or cross-fade continuously, with only a few breaks for the entire album.
The biggest highlights of the album, though, are the tracks where Ron and Roger work together. This is where they each get to their most experimental, piecing together compositions from various sound effects, often using body sounds in line with the film's theme. Our Song is the best example of this, with Body Transport being another particularly strange composition, apparently intended to give the impression of having one's body carried somewhere, although the people doing the carrying seem to be quite deranged and the piece ends with a loud clatter and the sound of Ron and Roger laughing.
The vocal antics in Body Transport are very well balanced by the lengthy set of instrumentals from Old Folks Ascension through Embryonic Womb-Walk, finally resolving to the fantastic Mrs. Throat Goes Walking, a groovy piece with a fairly standard rock 'n' roll backing track, nicely contrasted with nonsense wailing (probably from Ron; it doesn't sound like Roger to me). Sea Shell and Soft Stone is the dramatic closure of Ron's contribution to the album, an instrumental rearrangement of Roger's earlier track, Sea Shell and Stone.
The final track, written solely by Roger, features the entire 1970 line-up of Pink Floyd performing together with a female chorus. The music sounds quite similar to the chorus of Point Me at the Sky, complete with a very similar guitar tone from David, but the additional of the female singers makes the overall piece quite different from anything else from Pink Floyd's catalogue I can recall (though much of Roger's later solo material would bring back this prominent usage of female vocalists).
This is better than I expected, and frankly, it's a lot better than
Ummagumma as well. The only track I didn't enjoy at all was Chain of Life, mainly because that's basically another four minutes of Grantchester Meadows, but the rest of this is very enjoyable and fits really well together. There isn't too much of any one aspect, with Roger's tendency towards writing conventional rock music very nicely balancing Ron's tendency to experiment. Highly recommended to anyone, not just Floyd fans.
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