A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS

Given the precarious psychic conditions of Syd Barrett that worsened day by day, the remaining members of Pink Floyd had to recruit David Gilmour to reinforce the band and finally replace him in the middle of 1968, and it is thus that the main creative force of the debutante "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn", ends up participating tangentially in the elaboration and publication of "A Saucerful of Secrets" (1968) the second album of the Englishmen.

A work in which the recomposed band is in search of its identity, immersed in psychedelic landscapes and surpassing the planetary limits, as with the esoteric "Let There Be More Light" and the enveloping bass of Roger Waters and the final guitar solo of Gilmour, with the intriguing and hypnotic "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" whispered by Waters over the instrumental curtain that the keyboards, xylophones and vibraphones of Wright (great protagonist of the album) and the persistent and orientalized percussion of Nick Mason build, and especially with the experimental "A Saucerful of Secrets", an extensive sonorous transgression divided in four segments and impregnated with surreal cosmic divagations and whose celestial keyboards of the last section give it a touch of emotional grandiloquence.

And those astral atmospheres also find earthly backwaters to support melodies such as the nostalgic "Remember a Day" which includes an interesting slide guitar from Barrett in one of his sporadic appearances, Waters' first approach to the war theme with the squeaky "Corporal Clegg" and the use of the almost satirical whistle of the kazoo, and also the narcotized acoustic beauty of "See-Saw".

Finally "Jugband Blues," one of Barrett's last creative flashes, recorded much earlier than the rest of the work, is the closing statement that combines the luminosity and mental instability of a diamond that stopped shining much earlier than it should have.

Although "A Saucerful of Secrets" did not reach the heights of popularity and recognition of the great albums of the band (#9 in the UK charts and without figure in the US charts), it is placed as the transitional album and the platform on which Pink Floyd would begin to build their later proposals.

3/3.5 stars

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