THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

Ah Piper, a masterpiece of pyschedelic mysticism. This was sadly the only Floyd album ever in which we got to experience the trippy genius that was Syd Barrett first hand. His whimsical lyrics and the ingenuity of his guitar work make this album an essential one within the landscape of pyschedelia specifically, and prog in general.

Pink Floyd had already shown the world their capabilities with the Arnold Layne single and moreso with See Emily Play, but the album opening track on Piper, the pure space rock genius of Astronomy Domine eclipses both these. The lyrics are bizarre even by Syd's standards and were reportedly written during his first acid trip, where he walked around holding a lime and an orange claiming they were planets. To be concise in speaking of this track, Nick Mason owns! It is the best song on this album and one of their greatest ever. 4/4

Lucifer Sam is one of the more rockier tracks on Piper and like many of the songs on the album I find it relatively unmemorable, but still high quality. It isn't as freaked out as many of the other songs, indeed the semi-normal lyrics suggest Syd may have written this song during a more moderated LSD binge. 2/3

The 3rd song matilda Mother is like Lucifer Sam, difficult to talk about in any great depth, but is totally different from the previous track. It is back to the more s optandard Barrett trademark of random senseless lyrics and trippy musical accompaniment. And it has a high quality slide guitar solo, another Barret trademark. 2/3

My unique song length based scoring system means that Flaming will score identically to the 2 previous songs. However I generally prefer this track than either of the other 2. It is the first true instance of the real childish type songs that Syd wrote throughout this album and has some fantastic keyboardery from Rick Wright midway through. And Rick and Syd harmonise well in their vocals. 2/3

Now we come to Pow R Toc H. A song as weird as the title itself. It starts with some rather stupid, but rhythmically acceptable scat singing which returns midway through the song. It is largely a jazzy outlet for Richard and Nick (who again owns) as such. It is one of the Floyd's most underrated instrumental's ever and an album highlight. 4/5

Side A closes with Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk, a Roger Waters solo composition, and the only track on the album with no compositional input from Syd. And this shows, Syd was by far the most (only) competent songwriter at this stage. As is so often the case an album highlight is again followed by a lowlight. It isn't terrible, but it is very amateur and seemingly random. 1/3

Side B starts with the instrumental Interstellar Overdrive which to most people is held alongside Astronomy Domine as an album highpoint. This is justified as when performed live, often encompassing extended sections of random improvising and clocking in at nearly 20 minutes, it was a magnum opus of the pyschedelic movement. Unfortunately the Floud got too greedy with the studio tools they were equipped with and make 10 minutes of annoyingly random boredom, salvaged only by the awesomeness of the opening riff. 5/10

Next comes the Gnome, a short fun childish ditty inspired by the writings of JRR Tolkien. It isnt particularly memorable and would suffer if it were any longer than it is but it's still such silly fun. Rick is rather marvellously trippy in this song and it certainly has nothing particularly wrong with it. 2/2

Chapter 24 is the middle track in a trio of book inspired songs, this time with lyrics virtually leeched directly from the chinese philosphical text, I-Ching. If you think this might make the words sound random, you'd be right. Unfortunately unlike both the Gnome and Scarecrow songs, Chapter 24, even at 4 minutes, is too long, especially considering its quiet guitarless nature, although Rick's work is strong. 2/4

The penultimate track is the original See Emily Play b-side, The Scarecrow. This song is the pinnacle of childish lyrical sillyness but god help me I really like the song! This may be because of Syd's almost unnoticeably brilliant guitar which backs his vocal line and peaceful acoustic work backing Rick in the close of the song. Like The Gnome, it would be annoyingly repetitive if longer than 2 minutes, but it is hig quality as it is. 2/2

Ahh Bike. What stupid, stupid fun. This song is rather difficult to fully relay here. Everyone has a lot of affection for this song, including me, because it so famously ridiculous, making songs like The Scarecrow seem like Final Cut tracks in comparison. The musicianship is terrible, but it was meant to be like that, nothing about this song is meant to be taken seriously. Indeed as screwed up as it seems, Bike is the one song where Syd was truly sane and in control while writing. The random noises at the end might be annoying (and more than half the song) but this song has too much novelty value to be just dumped, even though it is pretty terrible. 2/3

This is not one of the Floyd's greatest albums, especially musically and compositionally, but it is not one of their worst, and the musicianship is in fact better than you might think when first hearing the album. But it is still the pyschedelic stigma associated with it, and with Syd Barrett that gives this album its value. Not an album any person would want to play day after day, but a great example of psychedelic rock and a great debut effort.

Total: 28/40 - 70.00% - 3.50stars.