Track Listing
1. Astronomy Domine
2. Lucifer Sam
3. Matilda Mother
4. Flaming
5. Pow R Toc H
6. Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk
7. Interstellar Overdrive
8. Gnome
9. Chapter 24
10. Scarecrow
11. Bike
| Details | | Number of CDs: | 1 | | Producer: | Norman Smith | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Distributor: | EMI Operations/CEVA Logistics | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | AAD |
Album Notes
Pink Floyd: Syd Barrett (vocals, guitar); Roger Waters (vocals, bass); Rick Wright (piano, organ); Nick Mason (drums).Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, England.Pink Floyd's debut was its only recording based on the vision of founding singer/guitarist Syd Barrett, an art student whose world revolved around music, mysticism, and liberal doses of hallucinogens. The band's moniker was taken from the first names of Georgia bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council (an album of theirs was a favorite of Barrett's), and the album's title came from a chapter of Kenneth Grahame's children's classic, THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS (also a staple of Barrett's library).Recorded at Abbey Road at the same time The Beatles were cutting SGT. PEPPER, PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN is an avant-garde pastiche of trippy improvisation and snappy pop snippets--a blurring of musical borders that went far beyond what the Fab Four were doing a couple of rooms away. (Producer Norman Smith had been The Beatles' chief engineer for much of the early '60s.) Instrumental space-jams like "Pow R. Toc H." and "Interstellar Overdrive" smashed the conventionality of the pop mainstream by opening up traditional song structures, as bits of Rick Wright's reverb-soaked Farfisa organ and Barrett's scratchy guitar float in and out of the mix. The other side of Barrett's musical expression was an ability to write shorter "pop" songs that were similar to traditional fare only in length--acid-fueled observations of a Siamese cat on "Lucifer Sam," and child-like tales on "The Gnome" and "Bike."
Editorial Reviews
Ranked #55 in Q's 100 Greatest British Albums
Q (06/01/2000)
4.5 stars out of 5 - ...a masterpiece of the [psychedelia] genre....the golden achievement of Syd Barrett....a milestone in what soon would be called 'head music'...
Rolling Stone (12/09/1999)
Included in Q Magazine's Best Psychedelic Albums of All Time
Q (08/01/1999)
5 Stars - Indispensable - ...PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN is, even counting SGT. PEPPER, possibly the defining moment of English psychedelia and Syd Barrett's magnum opus; strange, sad, and a record that all should own...
Q (01/01/1995)
Included in Q Magazine's Best Psychedelic Albums of All Time Q (6/00, p.69) - Ranked #55 in Q's 100 Greatest British Albums Rolling Stone (12/9/99, p.82) - 4.5 stars out of 5 - ...a masterpiece of the [psychedelia] genre....the golden achievement of Syd Barrett....a milestone in what soon would be called 'head music'...Q (1/95, p.275) - 5 Stars - Indispensable - ...PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN is, even counting SGT. PEPPER, possibly the defining moment of English psychedelia and Syd Barrett's magnum opus; strange, sad, and a record that all should own...
Q (08/01/1999)
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