The cover was designed by Hipgnosis , and was the band's first not to feature their name, or have photographs of them on any part of it. This was a trend that would continue on subsequent covers throughout the s. The cover shows a Holstein cow on a meadow landscape.
Although it was commercially successful on release, the band — particularly Roger Waters and David Gilmour — have expressed negative opinions of the album. Ron Geesin , who had influenced and collaborated with Waters, co-composed the title track. Pink Floyd started work on the album after completing their contributions to the soundtrack for the film Zabriskie Point in Rome, which had ended somewhat acrimoniously. They headed back to London in early for rehearsals.
A number of out-takes from the Rome sessions were used to assemble new material during these rehearsals, though some of it, such as "The Violent Sequence", later to become " Us and Them ", would not be used for some time. The title track of Atom Heart Mother resulted from a number of instrumental figures the band had composed during these rehearsals, including the chord progression of the main theme, which guitarist David Gilmour had called "Theme from an Imaginary Western", [ 6 ] [ 7 ] and the earliest documented live performance was on 17 January [ 7 ] at Hull University.
As a result, EMI insisted the band were not allowed to do any splicing of the tape to edit pieces together. Consequently, band members Roger Waters and Nick Mason had little choice but to play the bass and drums, respectively, for the entire minute piece in one sitting. The other instruments the band played were overdubbed later. Mason recalled the final backing track's lack of precise timekeeping would cause problems later on. By March, they had finished recording the track, [ 10 ] but felt that it was rather unfocused and needed something else.
The band had been introduced to Ron Geesin via the Rolling Stones tour manager, Sam Cutler , and were impressed with his composition and tape-editing capabilities, particularly Waters and Mason.
