Pink Floyd announce Special Edition release of Atom Heart Mother

Friesian cow from the cover of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother album — (Image credit: Hipgnosis Copyright Pink Floyd Music Ltd)

Pink Floyd have announced the release of a special edition of their 1970 album Atom Heart Mother, the band's first ever No. 1 album, through Pink Floyd Records on December 8.

The new reissue, originally released in Japan in 2021, features footage of the Atom Heart Mother suite performed at the Hakone Aphrodite Festival – held beside the Hakone Ashinoko Lake in Japan, on August 6 and 7, 1971 – and was originally released as part of The Early Years box set. The film has been upgraded from a recently discovered original tape. It also includes a behind-the-scenes mini documentary. Hakone Aphrodite was Japan's first international outdoor rock festival.

Atom Heart Mother will be released as a special 2-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) from Hakone Aphrodite Festival. The set also contains some unique memorabilia – a special photo book containing many rare, never-seen-before photos, reproductions of the pamphlet, the poster, the concert ticket, and the flier distributed at the event.

The original 16mm film of this video was discovered in a fan’s garage. 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 and the show set-up.

Pink Floyd also performed Careful With That Axe, Eugene, A Saucerful Of Secrets and Echoes from then-unreleased Meddle album. Sadly, official footage of these has not resurfaced.

You can view a packshot and some images from the Hakone Aphrodite Festival below.

Pre-order Atom Heart Mother Special Edition.

Hakone Aphrodite — (Image credit: Pink Floyd)

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.