Pink Floyd - The Committee Soundtrack (1968)

Even if you're a die-hard Pink Floyd, chances are you've never heard of their songs from the 1968 movie "The Committee." Two of the songs made it onto "The Early Years 1965-1972" box set, but that's about it. There are several reasons for this. For one, apparently it's a pretty bad movie, with a length slightly under an hour, so few people have ever seen it. Secondly, all the Pink Floyd songs are mood setting incidental instrumentals, the kind one usually hears in movies, so it's far from their most interesting stuff. 

But worst of all is the fact that the only known versions of the songs come from the movie itself, complete with the actors talking all over the songs. Even the two songs included on the box set have some talking over them, though those were probably chosen because they don't have much compared to the others. 

Then, on top of all that, the Pink Floyd songs added together only make up about 15 minutes worth of music. Apparently, back in 1968, the band considered putting this music on record, but decided against it because they thought only 15 minutes would be a rip off for an album. (Plus, they probably realized it wasn't their best.)

So, long story short, this is for die-hard Pink Floyd fans only. But at least the worst problem of all the talking over the music can be eliminated, so one can actually properly enjoy the music for the first time. Early today, I posted a couple of Pink Floyd songs from 1967 where I was able to remove a BBC narrator talking over the music, due to two sound editing programs I use, Spleeter and X-Minus. I realized if I could do that for them, I could do the same thing here, so I did.

I'm glad to say the program worked quite well. Most of these songs had actors talking over them pretty much non-stop, from start to finish. I was able to remove all that, so you don't hear a word. There is some sound degradation here and there, but it's like night and day compared to trying to listen to the music with the talking on top. What's revealed is mainly a lot of noodling around on the organ by Rick Wright. David Gilmour had joined the band as lead guitarist shortly before this was recorded, but you don't hear any blistering solos from him. However, this does make for good mood setting background music.

Since The Committee songs only add up to 15 minutes, I'd added a version of "Interstellar Overdrive" to the end. This appeared in another 1968 movie, called "San Francisco." However, it actually was recorded in late 1966. As such, it's a pivotal recording by the band. It's probably the first thing they ever properly recorded with the name "Pink Floyd," the first showing they'd changed from a blues band to a psychedelic one. Since it's about 15 minutes long, it makes the whole album about 30 minutes long. That's still short, but at least it's plausible for an album. Because it's instrumental, I think it continues roughly the same mood set from the earlier songs.

By the way, I don't think any of "The Committee" songs have actual names. For the two songs on the box set, they were just called "Music from The Committee No. 1" and "Music from The Committee No.2." I've ignored those names, since they're confusing with the numbering of all the songs, in the order they appeared in the movie. (In this numbering system, "Music from The Committee No. 1" is "Part 2" and "Music from The Committee No.2" is "Part 8."

However, I wasn't happy with just "Part 1" and "Part 2" and so forth. I had a hard time keeping track. So I took it upon myself to give them all different subtitles, at least. For those, I generally used words from the first line or two of the actors' dialogue spoken over the music (now deleted, of course). Parts 1, 2 and 9 are exceptions. "Part 1" is simply "Part 9" played backwards. Both versions didn't have any talking over them. And "Part 2" also didn't have any talking over it, but it did have the sound of birds chirping near the front, as well as some laughing near the end (I removed the laughing). So I called it "Birds Chirping."

"Part 2" and "Part 8" are clearly the same music idea, what one probably would call the theme song for the movie. "Part 7" is said to be an early version of "Careful with that Axe, Eugene," though it doesn't sound that similar to me.

01 The Committee, Part 1 [Backwards] [Instrumental] [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
02 The Committee, Part 2 [Birds Chirping] [Instrumental] [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
03 The Committee, Part 3 [Sound like a Snob] [Instrumental] [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
04 The Committee, Part 4 [In the Womb] [Instrumental] [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
05 The Committee, Part 5 [Suffocating] [Instrumental] [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
06 The Committee, Part 6 [Access to Knowledge] [Instrumental] [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
07 The Committee, Part 7 [The Fakery] [Instrumental] [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
08 The Committee, Part 8 [Do You Play Bridge] [Instrumental] [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
09 The Committee, Part 9 [Not Backwards] [Instrumental] [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
10 Interstellar Overdrive [1966 Version] (Pink Floyd)

https://www.imagenetz.de/gVqva

The cover is based on a poster for the movie. I cropped it from a rectangular shape and added "Pink Floyd" at the top. I believe this is from a later rerelease of the movie that makes it look much more interesting than it is. From what I understand, nearly all of the movie is just of people in a room talking about some pseudo-intellectual BS.