There is no way to predict either "The Madcap Laughs" or "Barrett" based on the few things we originally heard from Syd on Pink Floyd's debut album. At once, the records are miles apart and still as close as they could ever be. Of the two solo albums, "Barrett" is perhaps more readily accessible than "The Madcap Laughs" simply because it features a more typical rock line-up and a more traditional "songs" approach. But there is nothing typical or traditional about "Barrett".
This album is eccentirc in different ways: the "oh I forgot I was playing a solo" solo in "Gigolo Aunt", the bizarre atmosphere of "Maisie", the stylistic symmetry of song pacing between side one with side two, on the album anyway. (Baby Lemonade / Gigolo Aunt. Love Song / Waving My Arms in the Air. Dominoes / I Never Lied to You. It is Obvious / Wined and Dined. Rats / Wolfpack. Maisie / Elephant.) What it took to make this album one can only imagine and it seems a great deal of credit belongs to David Gilmour for pulling, and keeping, things together. There is a pervasively sad beauty to everything. Sad not from pain, but from surrender to a nostalgia and longing. These are the emotions that provide the record with a deeper sense of organization, intentional or not.

There is also a loose and improvised feel to much of what's going on here, and yet there are many many familiar markers. The bluesy riff on "Maisie" is nothing special, but the surpressed, almost mumbled delivery of the lyrics transforms the simple music into something ethereal. And we hear the lyrics of someone, no matter how altered by drugs and shades of mental illness, who has a singular voice. It would be too much to compare Barrett to Rimbaud, but there is a parallel sense of disorientation, dislocation and perceiving the everday as suddenly strange and saturated with new and concealed meaning. The clowns of "Baby Lemonade" remind us of "Octopus" from "The Madcap Laughs" -- originally called "Clowns and Jugglers". Here reality is transformed through incongruous juxtaposition: "sad town; cold iron hands; party of clowns; rain falls in grey." For lack of a better term, these are signature lyrics and belong only to Barrett because they show an uncanny ability to turn everything inside-out: "In the evening, sun going down, when the earth streams in, in the morning."

Even with these brilliant words "Barrett " is a disarming record because as familiar as the music is, the whole is much stranger than the surface reveals. The instrumental passages are almost all very casual and offhand, and still unique -- the backwards guitar on "Dominoes" is something that would usually make me breathe the word "cliche", yet in the context of that most sad song it feels neither cliche or even derivative. At every moment, we're experiencing something very different and very unique. Taken apart and taken together "Barrett" is remarkable music, and anything but obvious.










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Syd Barrett ?– The Madcap Laughs / Barrett

Tracklist

Companies, etc.

• Record Company – Capitol Industries, Inc.
• Manufactured By – Capitol Records, Inc.
• Marketed By – Capitol Records, Inc.
• Distributed By – Capitol Records, Inc.
• Pressed By – Capitol Records Pressing Plant, Winchester
• Mastered At – Capitol Mastering

Credits

• Artwork – Richard Evans (7)
• Bass – David Gilmour
• Composed By, Vocals, Guitar – Syd Barrett
• Cover [Double Album Package] – Hipgnosis (2)
• Drums – Jerry Shirley
• Engineer – Jeff Jarratt (tracks: A1 to B7), Mike Sheady* (tracks: A1 to B7), Peter Brown* (tracks: C1 to D4b), Pete Mew* (tracks: A1 to B7), Phil McDonald (tracks: A1 to B7), Tony Clark (tracks: A1 to B7)
• Lyrics By [From A Poem By] – James Joyce (tracks: B2)
• Mastered By – Ken Perry
• Organ, Piano, Harmonium – Richard Wright
• Producer – David Gilmour (tracks: A5, B1 to B6, C1 to D4b), Malcolm Jones (tracks: A1 to A4, A6, B7),Richard Wright (tracks: C1 to D4b), Roger Waters (tracks: A5, B1 to B6)