Track Listing
DISC 1:
1. Astronomy Domine - (Mono mix)
2. Lucifer Sam - (Mono mix)
3. Matilda Mother - (Mono mix)
4. Flaming - (Mono mix)
5. Pow R. Toc H. - (Mono mix, instrumental)
6. Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk - (Mono mix)
7. Interstellar Overdrive - (Mono mix, instrumental)
8. Gnome, The - (Mono mix)
9. Chapter 24 - (Mono mix)
10. Scarecrow, The - (Mono mix)
11. Bike - (Mono mix)
DISC 2:
1. Astronomy Domine - (Stereo mix)
2. Lucifer Sam - (Stereo mix)
3. Matilda Mother - (Stereo mix)
4. Flaming - (Stereo mix)
5. Pow R. Toc H. - (Mono mix, instrumental)
6. Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk - (Stereo mix)
7. Interstellar Overdrive - (Mono mix, instrumental)
8. Gnome, The - (Stereo mix)
9. Chapter 24 - (Stereo mix)
10. Scarecrow, The - (Stereo mix)
11. Bike - (Stereo mix)
| Details | | Playing Time: | 84 min. | | Producer: | Hurricane Smith, Norman "Hurricane" Smith, Norman Smith | | Distributor: | EMI Music Distribution | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Mixed | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
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.
2 LPS on 1 CD. PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN was released in 1967 and A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS was released in 1968. Both are available separately on CD.
Pink Floyd: Richard Wright (organ); Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Syd Barrett.
Personnel: Syd Barrett (vocals, guitar); Roger Waters (vocals, bass guitar); Nick Mason (drums).
Recording information: Das Boot Recording.
Photographers: Colin Prime; Andrew Whittuck; David Larcher; Storm Thorgerson; Peter Curzon.
When the Beatles recorded SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND in 1967, they kicked a new band out of a neighboring studio to do some overdubs for "Lovely Rita." The band was Pink Floyd and, while the Beatles were polishing up what many consider to be the gold standard of British psychedelia, Syd Barrett and Co. were already upending the young genre with PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN. Produced by Norman Smith--the Beatles' chief engineer in the early '60s--PIPER catapulted the British Invasion into the cosmos. With an explosive spirit barely contained within pop's dictates, the tracklist has an array of classics. Roger Waters's sinister bass slinks beneath the aural lysergy of "Instellar Overdrive" and "Lucifer Sam," while Rick Wright's organ drones envelop harmonic whimsies like "Matilda Mother."
Ultimately, PIPER, the only Floyd record that seriously included him, belongs to Barrett. Using the electric guitar as a textural dervish, turning pop convention into shifting melodic quicksand, and introducing childlike lyricism into the psychedelic lexicon (the album's name comes from his favorite children's book, THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS), his voice and songwriting astound. Indeed, Barrett's blown-mind cadences are as much a symbol of psychedelia as Hendrix's strat or George Harrison's sitar. His voice simply sounds like tripping, and captures all the ungraspable beauty and fearful fragility of the experience. An extraordinary debut record, PIPER remains Barrett's visionary statement of purpose.
This two-CD set is a well-intentioned (and, purely on its own terms, excellent) assembly of the two different mixes, stereo and mono, of Pink Floyd's 1967 debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, issued by EMI Records for the 40th anniversary of its release. And if it stood alone, with no other version of the album out there, it could be recommended without hesitation -- the original stereo and unedited mono versions of the album (of which the latter is totally new to CD) have been given state-of-the-art digital transfers, and those two mixes are different enough so that they're both worth hearing. The balances on the instruments on various songs is sometimes radically different, and it's clear that there were so many ideas tried in the mono mix (which was done first) that didn't make it to the stereo mix, and other ideas that were unique to the stereo version. The only problem with this two-CD set is that it stands distinctly in the shadow of a more expensive and ambitious Piper at the Gates of Dawn [3-CD Deluxe Edition], which includes a brace of outtakes plus the five single-only sides issued by the band during 1967. And anyone who would be interested in the stereo and mono mixes of Piper would almost certainly be a natural audience for that third CD of material. So most Floyd fans who would buy this double-CD set should just skip past it and go for the triple-disc set. The latter comes in a handsome hardcover book format and offers fans of the early Pink Floyd a chance to do something for the first time in the CD era (and for the first time since the year 1967 and maybe 1968) -- immerse themselves in the Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd sound. That includes not only the stereo and mono mixes of the album on two separate digital platters, but also the band's three early singles, plus two previous unreleased ...
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)
Ranked #40 in Mojo's The 50 Most Out There Albums Of All Time - Thirty eight years on, there's nothing like it...
Mojo
5 stars out of 5 -- [T]hese Edward Lear-ish messages from the mind of Syd Barrett served as a reminder to even The Beatles...that pop is at its best when it's headed into the unknown.
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