The two hundred and fourth album: #204 Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs
I feel the history of this album might be as interesting as the music itself, the product of mental health issues that come through in different ways. The first track, Terrapin, is a relaxing, blues number, calming you down and leading you through a slow increase in manic energy, first culminating in a darker, distorted No Man's Land that feels unsettling.
Still though, it feels like there's no real rhyme or reason to the songs included on the album - probably partially due to the disjointed nature of its recording. Two tracks later, we get Here I Go, a simple rock song that reminds me of those of the early sixties, even when Barrett's vocals don't quite meet the standards of the day. That's what makes it disconcerting, but other than that it's a sweet song about a break up, naive in how it presents its point of view.
Added to that is that the Dave Gilmour produced tracks feel looser than the Malcolm Jones ones, and you get a progression that is a bit unsettling, with the latter (mostly earlier in the album) standing out as the better songs. Whie probably down to the producers' stances (and possibly annoyance with how the production was going), the contracts beteen If It's You and Here I Go is startling, both coming from the same type of music, but with fastly different production and sound. It feels like it does Syd Barrett a disservice, but at the same time you can understand how it all would have happened. It's the work of someone who's a tortured genius, I'm sure, but where his trouble led to an album that just couldn't hold up.