Thursday, July 4, 2019

Welcome to the machine: He's getting rather old but he's a good mouse




Beyond The Wall, it takes me a long time to get into the early Pink Floyd, and when I finally get a taste of it in the Relics compilation album, it's really not what I expected.
 
Julia Dreams and See Emily Play are what you would expect from proto-Pink - slightly whimsical with hints of depth to come - and Interstellar Overdrive has a killer riff at the heart of some industrial length noodling that is familiar.

But I never saw the raw howling of The Nile Song, and was baffled by the whispers of Careful With That Axe, Eugene, and I don't know what the fuck to make of Bike.

So it's obviously Bike that I end up listening to the most. It's twee and silly and not serious at all, but is an infectious tune with a monster last verse, and in an age of sound collage work, the collage at the very end stand out.

Syd Barrett flared up so brightly and burned out just as fast, and got Pink Floyd up and running, until their sound eventually conquered the world, while he was back at his mum's flat. It took me a long time to really appreciate the things he was foinf fifty years ago, but I got there in the end.


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