WORKS

2.5 stars

As its release date and cover art do not suggest, "Works" is a compilation covering PINK FLOYD's 1967-1973 time period, from their psychedelic debuts to Dark Side of The Moon, passing by their experimental / space-rock years. This choice is rather clever: most of the songs were then not part of concept albums, and therefore can be relatively taken apart from their original studio releases. Could be a good idea with representative material such as "Arnold Layne", "See Emily Play", "Set The Controls...", "One Of These Days" or even - why not - "Free Four" from the forgotten "Obscured by Clouds"...

...if the other half of the track-list was not randomly picked among the studio albums. Why "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse", with alternate mixes, as DSOTM ambassadors? Why not "Time" or "Money"? Oh sorry, bits of can be heard in this disc... with the heartbeats of "Speak to me"... in "One Of These Days"'s intro... What? They're not even initially in the same album! Who came up with this Frankensteinian idea?

Although "Fearless" is an original choice, I would have personally replaced it with "Fat Old Sun" from "Atom Heart Mother", in order to have the 1970 cow album represented. Even more original is the inclusion of "Several Species..." from "Ummagumma", daring but maybe too experimental for Pink Floyd newcomers and beginners.

The main interest of this release is the track "Embryo", a nice soft, dreamy song recorded in 1968. In the likes of "Julia Dream", this 4 minute track will become a concert favorite in 1970-1971, reaching 10 minutes duration in gigs. Its eerie atmosphere will be an ideal playground for the band to experiment with ambiances and sound effects, resulting later in the elaboration of their epic masterpiece "Echoes". A mandatory listen for every Floyd fan.

"Embryo" is the only convincing argument of "Works"... or was now, as it can be now found in "1967-72 Cre/ation", part of the "Early Years" box set, both in studio and live versions. (Oh) By the way, this double compilation is clearly much more complete and representative of this creative time period than "Works".

As a conclusion, this release is not bad per-se, furthermore songs have not been cut off, contrarily to other best-ofs. Nonetheless, curious choices prevent it from being a good photography of PINK FLOYD's career before their world- wide success.

If you want to discover PINK FLOYD, better go for "Dark Side of the Moon" first...

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