THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

After touring the London underground circuit since 1966 with legendary lysergic and multi-colored presentations at the mythical UFO club (one of the preferred venues for such purposes) and with the singles "Arnold Lane" and "See Emily Play" as initial letters of introduction, Pink Floyd released "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" (1967), their debut album and the only one with Syd Barrett at the helm, accompanied by the still secondary Roger Waters on bass, Richard Wright and Nick Mason on keyboards and percussion respectively.

Without all the production that would later be one of the hallmarks of the Englishmen, the album presents an original proposal dominated by psychedelia and astral voyages that Barrett's creative and unstable mind used to draw, with tracks like the emblematic "Astronomy Domine" and the journey through the planetary confines with Morse keys included and an interesting guitar riff by the singer, with the note of sanity that Wright's jazzy piano brings to the instrumental and wandering "Pow R. Toc H.", and with "Interestellar Overdrive", another cosmic lucubration extended to infinity.

Maintaining that permanent and impregnating psychedelic halo, the work is also tinged with delicate and even candid folk elements that the singer's oscillating personality developed from his interest in literature, especially children's literature, such as the nostalgic "Matilda Mother" inspired by Hilaire Belloc's "Cautionary Tales", the fabled "The Gnome" influenced by "The Lord of the Rings", and the baroque sadness of "The Scarecrow", themes that, although rudimentary, show a very attractive sense of complementarity and unity of the album.

To add an additional mystical component, the hypnotic "Chapter 24" refers to the "I Ching", the book of changes of the millenary Chinese philosophy, and the conclusive "Bike" makes it clear that folk and disturbing bizarre experimentations could be united in a single track.

The erratic behavior and disconnected from reality that wandered through hidden mental paths aggravated by the consumption of hallucinogens, made unviable the continuity of Barrett in the band and after the difficult promotional tour of the iconic and successful "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" (# 6 in the UK charts and # 13 in the US) in mid-1968 in the United States, he was replaced by David Gilmour.

3.5 stars

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