Storm Thorgerson

Hyp-ga-no-sis.

One of the founders was the wonderfully named Storm Thorgerson, but he was born Storm Elvin Thorgerson.

Let's expand that name into something even more fabulous.

He was born in 1944 and he went to school with one of the founder members of Pink Floyd, Sid Barrett.

One of the artists would die.

2012, it was H.R. Giger.

2013, it was Storm Thorgerson.

Just

By far.

Um, Storm Thorgerson doing his glorious thing.

Yeah.

Did he do the next one as well?

... and electronica, um, influences in there.

I'm also gonna go at you about it.

It's, uh, one of the few Storm Thorgerson album artworks that I actively dislike.

Mm.

It's amazing what people will do to get what they want.

I mean, Storm Thorgerson was notorious for doing things that he could have done in camera or in the dark room or in the studio.

But no, he had to take 700 beds to a beach.

Exactly.

Do you remember the album cover, listener? Do you? With that cute doggy on the front, designed by Higpenosis.

Hypnosis with Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell and so on.

Yes, that album cover.

Still not sure what was going on there.

...

I, I think to, to finally get with Aubrey or Poe or Storm, rather, Storm Thorgerson from Hipgnosis, to get the cover right, they had to call him from Japan because they were on tour over there to say, "No, we don't want what you want.

We want an ear under the water hearing waves of," you know, whatever, of, of sound.

And so the cover that you see, and I [laughs]I would never guess that that's what it was, to be honest with you

Yeah.

Storm Thorgerson vibe.

Yeah.

Yeah, it looks like a long hourglass.

On that same day, Pink Floyd were ensconced in Abbey Road Studios working on The Dark Side of the Moon.

The Obscured by Clouds cover was designed by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis and consisted of a still from the film, a man sitting in a tree, but out of focus to the point of complete distortion.

Obscured by Clouds did manage to enter the top ten in the UK, but it was barely noticed in the United States.

Rolling Stone called it a dull film soundtrack, and Robert Christgau wrote, quote, "The movie got buried.