Review Summary: This, my friends, is psychedelia at its absolute gnarliest.
A lot of folks take psychedelics to reclaim their youth, but Syd Barrett one-upped them all. On "Matilda Mother," the third song on Pink Floyd's miraculous debut The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, he spins a ridiculous story about a king--then pulls away the curtain to reveal it as a tale spun by a mother to her child. Once it hits you Barrett is singing from the perspective of a ***ing baby, the ecstatic, piercing voices come in: "WAAIII-TIIIIIIIIING!" This, my friends, is psychedelia at its absolute gnarliest.
The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn never transcends psychedelia, but instead laps delightedly at the genre's confines. This album could have been made in no time but the late 1960s, and yes, it's preposterously dated. In anyone else's hands, it could have been dreadful. But the sheer creativity of the band, as well as Barrett's undeniable pop chops and the sinister vocal duo of Barrett and keyboardist Richard Wright, makes this music immensely listenable.
That Barrett never relies on cliches is key to this. He sits on unicorns, follows gnomes, recites Chinese text with a straight face, travels through space, and pens a slightly annoyed, mundane ballad about his cat that's also the album's best pop song. The album's titular reference to The Wind In The Willows and the I Ching recital (on "Chapter 24") suggests an inspiration in contemporary media, or at least what he was into at the time. It's pure, wide-eyed fandom, similar to what Black Sabbath did with monster movies or Zeppelin with Tolkien.
It's easy to give Barrett credit for all of this, especially given that Pink Floyd is universally better-known for its sans-Barrett '70s work. But this is as true a Floyd as any. Richard Wright's presence is as vital to the record as Barrett's. Wright exerts himself on his organ with total confidence and utter commitment, never sounding out of step with the music and imbuing it with physicality and emotion.
Wright's also important as a contributor of backing vocals. Piper relies more on simple, shoe-leather techniques like impressionistic vocals and weird instrument sounds than the capricious studio tomfoolery characteristic of the Beach Boys and Beatles (and later Floyd, incidentally). The "whoosh" of the backing vocals as Barrett sings of screaming through the starlit skies on "Flaming" is bizarre and frightening, far more so than if they inserted a generic sound effect.
Piper's psychedelia is often daft, but it's hard to pinpoint any moments on it where the music is actually bad. My least favorite songs on here are "Chapter 24" (I don't feel it really works as a pop song) and "Interstellar Overdrive" (I'd say it goes on a bit too long). But those tunes are as interesting and memorable as anything else here. Any of these songs could be anyone's favorite, and it's every bit as consistent as Dark Side and Meddle. This is an essential album, and is as deserving of the Floyd name as any of their more ubiquitous work.
