10. Syd BarrettBarrett
… continued from the previous page It was during this time, and possibly as a result of my fried wiring, that I finally GOT Syd Barrett. I had the albums anyway and I quite liked them (not as much as Piper At The Gates Of Dawn) but felt them, because of their sketchy, frazz-ed inchoateness, to be only half-realised – and possibly exploitative to boot. However, with the (I’m pleased to say) temporary softening of my swede, something changed. His queasy, nonsensical wordplay suddenly made the most perfect sense and what had once seemed like lysergic whimsy now became a magical incantation; a spell that sparked a muttered dialogue between the two misaligned hemispheres of my brain. During that summer I listened to them obsessively over and over again on an iPod (not my listening device of choice but I appreciated its non-reliance on mains power). I found them chilling but oddly comforting at the same time – like Struwwelpeter roaming the river banks of Wind In The Willows.
I still have a guarded relationship with electricity (you can still see me sporting the kettle-wince come three o’clock) but I still unreservedly love these records in all their melting, wild-eyed glory.
Tim Farthing
