PINK FLOYD - PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN @ 55

 

Released on August 5th, 1967, Pink Floyd’s debut LP, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, is celebrating its 55th anniversary today. It’s the only album by the group which was fronted by co-founder, Syd Barrett, who disintegrated into an LSD fueled state of mental illness within a year of the album’s release, necessitating his departure from the band before they could complete their second album. However, Syd dominates the songwriting credits for this debut with his otherworldly & whimsical take on psychedelic pop taking up all but three of the albums songs.

Prior to their debut LP, the group had been playing together under various configurations and alternate names since about 1962, beginning like most British bands of the times from an American blues influenced foundation. By the time the mid 1960s were beginning to shift into the rear view mirror, the group had begun on a trajectory which included extended live improvisations and solos. Part of the reason for this evolution came from their lack of songs to perform and a desire not to repeat pieces during their sets. They realized that they could avoid repetition simply by extending the duration of the songs through solos and improvisation. As the psychedelic influence of LSD began to take hold, the groups sound began to be associated with the movement, even though by most accounts, it was only Barrett who was a true aficionado of the drug.

By 1967, the group had reached the status where they went professional by signing a record deal with EMI. They released a few singles earlier in the year before heading to EMI Studios in London’s Abbey Road between February and May to record the album. They made extensive use of the facilities more advanced production tools including EMT plate reverberation, automatic double tracking (ADT), and the studio’s vintage echo chamber. Next to The Beatles Sgt. Pepper, recorded at the same facility around the same time, the production of the album set the bar for cutting edge experimental engineering techniques for the times.

After signing to EMI and even before the album came out, the press were getting hyped up about the group. The sensationalism surrounding the psychedelic LSD movement resulted in numerous salacious tabloid stories from the likes of the News of the World paper and others. The label did their best to try to disassociate the group from this scene, but their reputation had been well established by then from their ongoing live residencies at London’s UFO Club. As the recording sessions for the album progressed, Barrett’s own indulgences began to escalate and impact his ability to function in the studio and within the group.

Upon its release, the album quickly garnered critical raves and, with the help of relatively successful singles paving the way, was a hit for the band, establishing them as prime movers of the London psychedelic scene, often lauded as its most sophisticated and articulate exponents. While some felt the LP hemmed in the more extreme experimentation of their live shows, the restraint in the studio ultimately helped to make the album more accessible to a larger audience and more marketable for the label. Subsequent to its release, it has become an essential document of the creative genius of Syd Barrett before his ability to function was derailed by his mental illness. Within their overall catalogue, it may be something of an outlier and atypical of the music they’d produce without Barrett’s influence, but it remains a fundamental cornerstone of the band’s mythos.

KLAUS SCHULZE - IRLICHT @ 50

Released in August of 1972, the debut solo album from Klaus Schulze, Irrlicht, is marking half a century on the planet this month. The album's complete title is: Irrlicht: Quadrophonische Symphonie für Orchester und E-Maschinen (German: "Will-o'-the-wisp: Quadraphonic Symphony for Orchestra and Electronic Machines"). Though Schulze may be known as a synthesizer master, there are actually none used on this album. The sounds all originate from a manipulated recording of an orchestra rehearsal and tonalities extracted from a broken and modified electronic organ.

The initial conceptions for the album arose while Schulze was still part of Tangerine Dream, but he came into conflict over the direction of the project with Edgar Froese and, failing to resolve their issues, Schultze left the band to work on it as a solo effort. Because he was still under contract with Krautrock label Ohr due to his association with Tangerine Dream, the label insisted that his solo recordings were covered under that contract and they released the album. This was actually not a problem for Schulze as the experimental nature of the recordings would have been a hard sell if he’d had to shop them around to other labels, so the fact that the record came out at all was to his benefit.

Stylistically, the music combines elements of Musique concrète with electronic drones in a manner which was a precursor to what would eventually become ambient music. It is alien and austere and evocative of science fiction vistas and atmospheres.

MICHAEL NESMITH - AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMIN'

 

Released in August of 1972, Michael Nesmith’s fifth post-Monkees solo album is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. It was an album built on a whim, but it became one of Nesmith’s most nuanced and eloquent statements.

After three LPs with his “First National Band” and one with his restructured “Second National Band”, Nesmith was band-less when it came time for his next album, save for his stalwart pedal steel guitar master, Orville "Red" Rhodes. Red was the constant at Mike’s side throughout all the incarnations of the National Band and would remain so until his untimely passing in the mid 1990s.

With RCA Records breathing down Nesmith’s neck looking for some “hits”, Mike was feeling the weight, but he wasn’t about to try slapping together another band. Instead, he had the inspiration to go in another direction altogether. For this next record, he’d keep it simple with just Red on the steel guitar and himself on vocals and acoustic guitar. And by gosh, that’s just what they did for the whole album. In deference to RCA’s pleading for hits, he duly titled the album “And the Hits Just Keep on Comin’”, in a typically ironic, tongue-in-cheek move born from the frustration of lackluster sales which were the fate of his previous solo albums.

Sadly, at the time of its release, it continued the trend of being ignored in the charts and by the record buying public, but it would not go without eventual vindication. In the years that have followed its release, it has steadily gained stature within his solo canon as one of his most heartfelt, elegant and haunting releases. Its simplicity and restraint serve to highlight the beauty of the songwriting and Rhodes’ steel guitar dreaminess lifts it all into the heavens of sublime perfection. What began as a move of desperation resulted in an artistic triumph. Listening to it against the backdrop of the modern world, it has a timelessness that makes it one of Nesmith’s most important works.