UK Psych-pop of the 60s

Intro

It's not always easy to trace the origin (geographical or otherwise) of a musical genre: while it can be said without a doubt that rock'n'roll was born in the USA, and with slightly less but still reasonable certainty the same can be said of punk, thanks to the Ramones beating their English counterparts to the punch (not forgetting the proto-punk of Stooges and New York Dolls), when it comes to psychedelia things get more complicated. From the very beginning of the Sixties, the mutual influences between the two sides of the Atlantic were complex and full of cross-references on both sides, to the point that the English beat sound of the Beatles initially took its cue from 50s rock mixed with the harmonies of the Everly Brothers and the melodic hooks of the girl groups — all American elements reworked through the harmonic lens of European tradition into a style that was nonetheless fresh and innovative — while the Rolling Stones themselves dug into the roots of American blues (and rhythm'n'blues), still managing to give it a distinctly personal new spin, and British pride was embodied by the iconic Union Jack, a flag often flaunted by the Who.

In 1964 the bands mentioned above (to which we should add at least the Kinks) and dozens of others were exported to the United States through the phenomenon known as the British Invasion, which influenced major groups both well-known (Byrds) and less so (Beau Brummels), and also gave rise to the garage-rock genre, with thousands of American kids (an estimated over 60 percent of teenagers at the time!) eager to emulate the British beat groups in their own home garages, toughening up and roughening the formula into an exciting, raw and aggressive mix, using distorted sounds (especially the fuzz pedal) in a proto-lo-fi, proto-punk, rough-and-ready approach within a phenomenon that was massive in scale yet still essentially underground, with only occasional breakthroughs on 45s, many of which were later collected on legendary posthumous compilations like "Nuggets". It's precisely garage-rock, differences notwithstanding, that has often been paired with psychedelia, so much so that the garage-psych combination has left its mark on rock history, from the Electric Prunes all the way to Ty Segall — and it's no coincidence that the term "psychedelic" was used for one of the very first times in an album title by a garage-minded band, the Blues Magoos, on "Psychedelic Lollypop" in 1966.

It was right from the start of the second half of the Sixties that times began to change, and at an even faster pace (the ever-visionary Dylan had sensed it at least a couple of years earlier): hordes of young people fired up by Beat literature and the use of mind-altering substances rebelled against an oppressive reality they no longer recognized themselves in, trying to change it through acts of civil disobedience and protests, more or less violent, that would explode into the riots of '68, creating alternative social spaces through hippie communes or simply retreating into imaginary worlds via the use of soft drugs and the LSD that was so fashionable at the time — substances that were replacing the amphetamines mods took to dance through their weekends in the clubs, or the stimulants abused by famous artists (such as Johnny Cash) to survive punishing tours. Hallucinogenic drugs played no small role in psychedelia, as they were used precisely to "reveal consciousness" (the etymology of the term) and to expand it, unlocking artistic creativity, alongside a deeper interest in Eastern philosophies and meditation techniques for spiritual and inner growth.

These socio-cultural currents wasted no time spilling over into music, altering its language, and the first buds of psychedelic pop and rock bloomed in 1966: in the United States with the Byrds flying eight miles high on "5th Dimension", with the debut of Jefferson Airplane, and above all with "The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators", on which Roky Erickson's band alternated garage blasts with visionary, hallucinogenic tracks, while in Britain the psych seed took root both in underground contexts, with the freakbeat phenomenon (an acid, baroque evolution of the original beat sound) typical of lesser-known bands like Creation, and among the biggest, most celebrated groups — chief among them the Beatles of the LP "Revolver", which contained the avant-garde "Tomorrow Never Knows" (along with other lysergic tracks penned by John Lennon); still within the beat scene, the Who of "Sell Out"; in folk, Donovan's "Sunshine Superman"; and in blues, the Cream of "Fresh Cream".

So English and American psychedelic (pop-)rock were born at the same time, but from the outset took on different stylistic forms that would diverge even further as they developed.

The moment the phenomenon truly established itself came in the year of grace 1967, a pivotal date in rock history in which, sticking to the United States, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Velvet Underground and (with less impact) the Grateful Dead all made their debut, while Jefferson Airplane released "Surrealistic Pillow" and "After Bathing At Baxter's", two of their finest albums. While the first three seminal names mentioned deserve separate discussion, given their highly personal styles and, for various reasons (including the death of some of the protagonists), their more short-lived artistic arcs, it was the latter two bands, both active in the San Francisco scene (alongside Quicksilver Messenger Service), who carried the psychedelic torch forward — Jefferson Airplane with revolutionary political leanings, and the Grateful Dead stretching out the sonic formula with sprawling improvisations and jam sessions that soundtracked their trips, feeding into what became known as acid rock. This was music that was very much a product of its time: in its subversive content, sharpened by a context torn apart by the deaths of the two Kennedys and by a war in Vietnam that grew more unacceptable year after year; in its vastness, echoing the great American spaces through which the endless notes of its longest suites flowed; and in the history of a nation that, from its very beginnings, had been driven toward the conquest of new frontiers and of freedom — an ideal often betrayed behind a hypocritical facade.

A completely different story unfolded in England, where psychedelia took hold in a bourgeois context devoid of socio-political engagement, within the affluent society of the fashionable Swinging London and among the intellectual circles of art students, through a musical style that, in most cases at least, didn't stray too far from the traditional song form, seeking instead to revive and modernize the roots of beat. This shouldn't be taken to mean the American version of the genre holds greater value, since political engagement isn't necessarily a sign of greater artistic significance; after all, musical experimentation was just as present in the UK, even if it expressed itself less through an expansion of running time and more through explorations carried out via studio manipulation, the use of exotic instruments, guitar effects, baroque arrangements and the distortion of more traditional pop melodies, with surreal, witty lyrics that went beyond ordinary reality, descendants of Lewis Carroll's paradoxical nonsense vein and the inventiveness of early science-fiction novels.

In England too, 1967 was the genre's key year, with the phenomenon's definitive explosion coming during the Summer of Love thanks to the release of the Beatles' "Stg. Pepper's Lonley Hearts Club Band" (June 1st) and "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn", the debut album by Pink Floyd (August 5th), both recorded during the same weeks at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, with the two bands keeping tabs on and influencing one another. While "Stg. Pepper's" was a genuine cultural event, an album that once again cemented the Fab Four's legend, a product that was psychedelic yet fundamentally pop for all its futuristic ambition, the fruit of the immense studio craft of the "fifth Beatle", producer George Martin, as well as of the inspiration of a band at the peak of its powers and creativity, the debut of the band led by Syd Barrett, following its first exquisitely psych-pop singles, began exploring uncharted territory through interstellar drifts and even bolder sonic experiments that made it another cornerstone of British psychedelia — completing the genre's great UK trilogy alongside the psych-opera "S.F. Sorrow" by the Pretty Things, which however came out the following year.

The Beatles' masterpiece cemented the psychedelic phenomenon on a mass scale, much of it at the time oblivious to its lysergic references (the LSD acronym, an allusion denied by the authors themselves regarding "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds") and its spiritual-esoteric ones, with a cover that placed leading figures of Eastern mysticism such as Yogananda alongside the shadowy occultist Aleister Crowley. But beyond its more or less veiled content, through a style that was both creative and accessible, it also paved the way for other major bands of the era who were otherwise far removed from the psychedelic world, such as the Rolling Stones, partly on the underrated "Between The Buttons" (one of Syd Barrett's favorite albums at the time) and above all on the muddled "Their Satanic Majesties Request", their anti-"Stg.Pepper's", or the Animals, in their excellent celebration of the scene titled "Winds Of Change" (credited to Eric Burdon And The Animals).

Meanwhile, in London, a parallel underground scene was taking shape, supported by storied publications like International Times and legendary venues like the Ufo Club (located on Tottenham Court Road) — a scene led by the fledgling Pink Floyd, at the time still far from the institutional status they would later attain, alongside bands such as the early Soft Machine and the lesser-known Tomorrow, who together represented an acid, ramshackle alternative to the glossier Swinging London, with a following of flamboyantly dressed young people showing up high on psychedelic drugs to acid happenings and memorable gigs whose audiences included celebrities like Paul McCartney and Brian Jones. In truth, this underground scene was, in record-industry terms, only the tip of the iceberg of an alternative underbelly that produced an extraordinary wealth of output, rarely reaching the wider public and often exhumed only through posthumous reissues.

It's precisely from this submerged territory that we've drawn most of the entries for this (obviously non-exhaustive) list of ten of the best albums belonging to the English psychedelic pop genre (more or less underground) of the 1960s, leaving aside the wide-ranging psychedelia of Pink Floyd's debut and the pataphysical strain of Soft Machine's first two records, and instead staying within the pop perimeter tied to the song form — where songwriting and arrangement reached levels of creativity and imagination far removed from simple Merseybeat tunes, thanks to new sounds, arrangements, studio trickery and visionary, futuristic manipulation. This was enough to found a genuine (sub)genre that reached its peak in the second half of the 1960s before fizzling out at decade's end, swept away by hard rock, progressive and glam.

To stay within an "underground" remit, the various albums mentioned in this introduction have been excluded from the list, since they were made by very well-known bands already widely covered elsewhere (the only exceptions being the Hollies, less followed in Italy than at home, and the "unsuspected" Bee Gees). This leaves room for lesser-known groups, often outside the counterculture circuit and the Ufo Club crowd too (except for Tomorrow), who had short, unlucky careers with only one or two records to their name. Despite the quality of their work, they're not merely fodder for collectors and completists but lost treasures to rediscover for anyone who loves the sounds that were born in that moment and shone brightest within it — sounds that nonetheless left traces afterwards, both in the neo-psychedelic revival of the 1980s Paisley Underground (especially Rain Parade and Plasticland) and in contemporary artists like early Tame Impala, Britain's own Temples, or the more recent and underrated Electric Looking Glass and The Striped Bananas (and many others — a full list would run for miles).

Finally, as an addendum, we've added a collection of Pink Floyd's early singles, not included on their official albums, which — alongside the Beatles' work of the same period — represent the zenith of psychedelic pop, a genre that lasted little more than a couple of seasons but whose surreal, refined allure earned it a slice of eternity in the history of pop and rock music.

1967

Blossom Toes – “We Are Ever So Clean”

Previously a beat outfit under the name The Ingoes, Blossom Toes were converted to the psychedelic cause under the wing of an old fox like Giorgio Gomelski, already a producer for the Yardbirds, and with their debut "We Are Ever So Clean" they crafted a work that has little to envy in ultra-celebrated contemporaries like "Sgt. Pepper's", thanks to a quality and completeness in mediating, on one hand, an acid-drenched edge — evident from the opening "Look At Me I'm You", with effected guitars, reverse sounds, acid melodies and disorienting backing vocals, in a sound perfectly suited to describing the loss of identity induced by hallucinogenic drugs — and, on the other, an elegance in baroque arrangements culminating in the harpsichord, strings and trombone that elevate the melodic crescendo of "People Of The Royal Parks", enough to make even the owner of a songbook as prestigious as Ray Davies's a touch envious.

The two elements interweave in an album steeped in sublime class, moving between Kinks-like vignettes warped by skewed harmonies ("Telegram Tuesday"), whose irony even tips into Bonzo Band-style zaniness ("The Remarkable Saga Of The Frozen Dog"), without disdaining more conventional, classically-tinged ballads ("Love Is" and "What's It For") with orchestrations worthy of Burt Bacharach. On the closing track, "Track For Speedy Freaks", fragments of the album's songs are reassembled as if in a distorting mirror, on a record that remains one of the genre's most accomplished masterpieces.

Kaleidoscope – "Tangerine Dream"

One of the few bands capable of holding their own against Blossom Toes is London's Kaleidoscope (not to be confused with the like-named, contemporary American Kaleidoscope), less ironic and eccentric than the former but just as compositionally gifted, reaching the summits of English psychedelic pop with their debut "Tangerine Dream", released a few months after the Summer of Love (November 1967) — one of the finest fruits of the era's underground pop, rightly admired, among others, by a certain Paul McCartney. Melodically, this is the genre at its peak, thanks to a gust of freshness and purity that flows from the opening title track, weaving crystalline piano, sweet acoustic guitars and flowery vocal harmonies. Elsewhere, caresses of rare folk delicacy comparable to contemporary Donovan ("Please Excuse My Face") alternate with enchanted music-box tones that scatter colourful petals over the sweetest moments of Velvet Underground ("Dear Nelly"), and Byrds-ian jingle-jangle that spills into the technicolour dreams of early Pink Floyd ("In The Room Of Percussion"), even brushing up against freakbeat on the livelier "Holydaymaker". A masterpiece within the masterpiece, the poignant closing singalong "The Sky Children" stands out as one of the greatest products of hippie utopia, an idyllic counterpart to the unsettling "White Rabbit" (Jefferson Airplane), free of the political undertow that fired up similar songs by bands on the other side of the Atlantic, and all the more dreamlike and pure for it.

Creation – “We Are Paintermen”

Some might think that Creation went down in history for the peculiar fact that their guitarist Eddie Phillips played guitar with a bow years before Jimmy Page did: that would be a massive understatement, since this band remains among the earliest and most significant exponents of the freakbeat genre (a fusion of beat, garage and psychedelic rock), if not of English psychedelia as a whole, as foreshadowed by their early singles dating back to 1966. Rougher-edged than the average band of the time, close enough to acts like the Who and the Troggs (rather than the softer, more psychedelic Beatles) thanks to distorted sounds and mod influences audible on the iconic single "Making Time", they earn their place on this list thanks to a melodic sensibility distilled in the acid-tinged chorus of their second single "Painterman", as well as other irresistible tracks ("Can I Join Your Band", "Nightmare" with its ultra-pop backing vocals) from their sole LP "We Are Paintermen", on which even the cover versions of "Hey Joe" and "Like A Rolling Stone" take a back seat to the freshness of the originals. The acid-drenched edge, meanwhile, reaches its peak on the trippy "Though My Eyes" and would be sharpened further in their live shows through the use of light shows in the vein of the early Pink Floyd.

Like the Beatles, they passed through Germany, though with a rather different fate: there, due to problems with their record label, they recorded their only album (they even reached the German top ten with the aforementioned single "Painter Man"!), and instead of conquering the world, they struggled to break through even in perfidious Albion, before falling apart despite their undeniable talent — leaving a bitter aftertaste on an artistic and commercial career that was, to put it mildly, unlucky.

Bee Gees – "Bee Gees First"

Yes, those Bee Gees: not everyone may know that the Gibb brothers' band, exactly ten years before setting the whole world dancing with the songs from the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, debuted with an almost eponymous album ("Bee Gees First"), on which they feasted on harmonic delights enriched by lush arrangements worthy of their contemporaries the Beach Boys or the Zombies, gravitating around a baroque-pop world that, beyond instant classics like "To Love Somebody" (which admittedly had little to do with psychedelia), didn't shy away from acid-tinged detours courtesy of blasts like "In My Own Time" (clearly modelled on the Beatles' "Taxman") and "I Close My Eyes", or unusual melodies enriched by airy strings ("Cucumber Castle"), while the even more visionary "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You" marks the album's lysergic high point. If the following two albums retained some traces of this debut, leaning instead toward more conventional classic pop, the disco-music turn that would come to define and popularize the group might give the impression of listening to practically a different band altogether.

Hollies – "Butterfly"

The Hollies had a career that ran parallel to the Beatles: they debuted in 1963, just a year after the Fab Four, starting out with Merseybeat tunes that nonetheless boasted irresistible melodies, before turning psychedelic over 1966-67. They shouldn't, however, be considered mere imitators, but rather co-protagonists of a formidable scene, earning both critical acclaim and strong sales. For the Manchester band, the infatuation with psychedelia was chiefly the work of frontman Graham Nash, and it burst forth, wedded to an innate pop sensibility, on "Butterfly" from the opening "Dear Eloise" onward, bearing traces of the surrealism of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" and the Donovan-esque fairy-tale idyll of "Pegasus", but also exploring alternative paths through exotic raga suggestions ("Maker") or even electronic manipulation, material already visionary on a melodic level ("Try", probably an invitation to a rather different kind of experimentation). Despite the album's strong artistic results (though not matched by commercial success), Nash — at odds with the rest of the band, who wanted to abandon their psychedelic ambitions — decided to leave the Hollies and head for the US, where he would form the celebrated supergroup alongside David Crosby and Stephen Stills (and later Neil Young).

1968

Nirvana – “All Of Us”

Obviously not that Nirvana, though it would be hard to confuse the two (unlike, say, contemporaries Kaleidoscope UK and Kaleidoscope US): the gap is simply too wide between the Seattle of the 90s, all distorted guitars and flannel shirts, and the Swinging London of thirty years earlier, decidedly more elegant in both sound and dandyish aesthetics. It was in London that Irishman Patrick Campbell-Lyons met Greek-born, England-adopted Alex Spyropoulos, forming the core of Nirvana (U.K.), who debuted in the summer of 1967 with "The Story Of Simon Simopath", one of the very first concept albums ever released in Britain. It told an imaginative coming-of-age story set in a parallel universe featuring a six-dimensional city that the protagonist longed to escape, learning to fly toward better shores: the kind of story that can only be born when heavy use of psychotropic substances and unbridled imagination collide with the sci-fi genre; after all, these were the golden years of science-fiction literature, thanks to authors like Robert Sheckley and Philip K. Dick.

If the surreal concept tied the band to the nascent psychedelic scene, the opulent, baroque sound pointed instead toward an (all too?) elegant orchestral pop. Nirvana's artistic vision reached full fruition with the follow-up, "All Of Us", which raised the ambitions of the debut, expanding on the baroque-pop suggestions of early Bee Gees with a proto-prog, symphonic flavour worthy of Procol Harum - whose "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" clearly left its mark on the band, who even tried their hand at cinematic instrumentals in an Ennio Morricone-esque vein ("The Show Must Go On"). Bringing Nirvana back into psych-pop territory are tracks worthy of Blossom Toes, such as "Girl In The Park", "Miami Masquerade", "Frankie The Great" and "Everybody Loves The Clown" - sugary morsels dampened with just a drop of LSD, just enough to create and warp unusual, tart harmonies - not to mention the phased guitar of opener "Rainbow Chaser", the sole 45 hit by a band unjustly forgotten.

Tomorrow – "Tomorrow"

To talk about Tomorrow is to talk about the very top tier of English underground psychedelia (and beyond) in the 60s. The band ran with the "right crowd" at the UFO Club, sharing bills with the early Pink Floyd among others, and their live act was one of the headline draws. They sound, on the surface, rockier than average, thanks to the presence of guitarist Steve Howe - before his prog years with Yes - and to early singles "My White Bicycle" and "Revolution", set ablaze by the electric guitar of this Hendrix-schooled neo-guitar hero, thanks to heavy use of wah-wah, flanger, fuzz pedals and assorted effects. In truth, on their sole self-titled album Tomorrow also tried their hand at the most refined pop, its lineage betrayed by an electrified cover of "Strawberry Fields Forever". Thanks to the melodic gift of singer-songwriter Keith West, aided by producer Marc Wirtz on arrangements, the album is scattered with precious little gems in the form of pastel-toned vaudeville ("Shy Boy", "Auntie Mary's Dress Shop"), embellished by a visionary piano, alternating with acid-tinged confections worthy of contemporaries Pretty Things and their "S.F. Sorrow" ("The Incredible Journey Of Timothy Chase").

Rounding out and completing the album are the visionary, west-coast-flavoured tracks of "Hallucination" and a political streak, however vague and naive, running through the early singles. Despite so many riches, the album's delayed release - it only came out in 1968 - and its poor commercial showing, compounded by internal rifts, led to the band's break-up, condemning it to a partial and undeserved obscurity. Completing the line-up was drummer Twink, who later passed through Pretty Things, Pink Fairies, Stars (a shadowy project with Syd Barrett that lasted less than a month between January and February 1972), and who released a solo album not included on this list, given its experimental style that goes well beyond pop.

July – "July"

Even while working within the song format, July could be seen as the most lysergic of the bunch. Debuting in 1968 with their self-titled album, the band seems trapped in the surreal, multicoloured bubble of the very earliest Pink Floyd, who had been running riot the year before: just the first magical seconds of "My Clown" - not by chance considered one of the finest singles of English psychedelia, on a par with those by Tomorrow and better-known bands - are enough, with its multi-effected guitars and Barrett-esque touches seemingly evoking the melted face of the crazy diamond, from the time he coated his head with Mandrax (a powerful tranquilizer) mixed with hair gel before a gig, which then dissolved under the heat of the amplifiers, warping his features and unhinging his mind.

The psychotropic effect is doubled by the other 45 placed alongside it in the tracklist, "Dandelion Seeds", this time thanks to creative rhythmic patterns and guitars that are no longer liquid but at times downright fiery; while the playful "Jolly Mary" and "Hallo To Me" update the beat songbook for the era of Kaleidoscope and Blossom Toes, keeping the same quality standard. Adding richness to the sound is an almost ethnic streak, the fruit of several trips to Morocco, evident in the sounds of "In The Way", with tablas and congas accompanying Middle Eastern-flavoured harmonies. The percussive intro to "You Miss It All" is instead just a red herring ahead of acid broadsides worthy of "S.F. Sorrow". The ability to combine warped guitars and ethnic percussion, hallucinated melodies and traditionally pop structures, with an inspiration that never falters, makes July's self-titled debut one of the finest legacies of British psychedelia, as well as a cult item among collectors. Sadly, the band, just like Tomorrow, broke up shortly after the album's release, with even less fanfare and greater public indifference.

1969

Another one-album wonder, Apple released "An Apple A Day" somewhat late in the day, given that its style is squarely that of the Swinging London of 1967. It's a psychedelic album in content, with an invitation to chemical banquets in the sun-drenched pop of "Let's Take A Trip Down Rhine", but above all in a compositional approach rooted in the Lennon–Barrett melodic and stylistic axis, heard in psych-pop gems like "Mr. Jones", "Buffalo Billycan" (both released as singles), "Queen Of Hearts Blues" and "Photograph". Rounding out the album is an unexpected hard streak, in the proto-garage power chords of the early Kinks that shake up "Doctor Rock", in a pair of super-electric Yardbirds covers ("Rock Me Baby" and "Psycho Daisies"), while the guitar riffs and frenzied piano of "The Mayville Line" suggest a peculiar strain of proto-glam. Despite its poor commercial fortunes, "An Apple A Day" remains one of the most important albums of its kind released in England at the time, as well as a rare item on the collectors' market.

Open Mind

London's Open Mind set themselves apart from the bands mentioned so far thanks to a more classically rock line-up - voice, guitar, bass, drums - which gave rise to a sound free of orchestral frills and eccentric flourishes, more direct but by no means raw or careless. Followers of the freakbeat style, already past its peak by the time their debut arrived at the end of the decade - and perhaps overlooked at the time partly for that reason - they wrote punchy songs that remain, paradoxically, gripping and infectious to this day, like the opener "Dear Louise", alternating them with hypnotic mantras ("Free As The Breeze") that betray a certain influence from American acid-rock, namely Jefferson Airplane ("I Feel The Same Way Too").

While their psychedelic roots also came through in lysergic imagery (the single "Magic Potion", its title a giveaway) and acid-tinged instrumental flourishes, the threads tying them to the British tradition are knotted firmly by a melodic sensibility that runs through the whole record, distilled into beat-style choruses or epic refrains ("Horses And Chariots"). As with the previous bands, timing was hardly Open Mind's strong suit - even more so in their case: a two-year delay (an eternity by the standards of the time) and a sound even more backward-looking than average kept them from ever breaking out of the underground, condemning the band to the most obscure of cult followings.

1970

Pink Floyd – “The Best Of Pink Floyd”

Don't let the title and date fool you: this isn't a best of but a collection of the early singles that Pink Floyd released in the 60s, which would come out in Italy three years later under the title "Masters Of Rock". The surreal charm of the band's first two 45s, "Arnold Lane" and "See Emily Play", released in 1967 but left off the official albums (they only appear on compilations like "Relics" and "Works"), showed that these promising newcomers were not merely disciples of the psychedelic Beatles but genuine rivals, who thanks to the songwriting talent of their leader Syd Barrett and the witty flourishes of his band, in some ways tended to surpass their masters, as later confirmed by the debut "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn".

But it's in these singles that their psych-pop character really shone, with lyrics that dealt respectively with compulsive cross-dressing and paid tribute to a mysterious, spaced-out regular of the UFO Club, through unusual melodic openings and lysergic arrangements, especially notable in keyboardist Rick Wright's contributions. Besides the first two 45s, the two B-sides are also included: the freakbeat of "Candy And The Currant Bun" (originally titled "Let's Roll Another One", a title too explicit to be acceptable at the time) and the psych-folk watercolour "The Scarecrow" (also featured on the debut album alongside "Chapter 24" and "Mathilda Mother"), plus the otherwise hard-to-find "Apples And Oranges", the last single credited to a Barrett who was growing ever more hallucinated and hazy, amid acidic wah-wah and harmonic ideas that were even more oblique and less commercial. This was probably the beginning of the end of the partnership between the rest of the band and their leader, by then in clear psychological decline, likely due to LSD abuse, to the point that in 1968 Syd left Pink Floyd for good to pursue a brief (just two albums) yet dazzling solo career, proof of his troubled but undeniable genius.

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