Pink Floyd: A Saucerful of Secrets (2016 remaster) [PINK FLOYD/COLUMBIA]

Why you'll love it

This 180g pressing uses the 2016 remaster from the band's own Pink Floyd Records reissue series. It reached No. 9 in the UK, and it's where David Gilmour arrives as Syd Barrett bows out.

This edition

• 2016 remaster
• 180g vinyl
• Pressed in the EU
• Stereo mix

About the album

Few bands have changed shape mid-album quite like this. Pink Floyd started A Saucerful of Secrets at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road) in August 1967 with Syd Barrett as their main writer, brought in his old friend David Gilmour along the way, and finished it as the band the world would come to know.

With producer Norman Smith at the desk, every member now wrote and sang. Roger Waters' "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" is a slow, hypnotic drift, with Barrett and Gilmour both on it. Rick Wright's "Remember a Day" and "See-Saw" are wistful psychedelic pop, Nick Mason's drums drive the title track's long instrumental voyage, "Let There Be More Light" opens with a rumbling bass line, and Barrett signs off with the strange, brass-band whimsy of "Jugband Blues," his last word on a Pink Floyd album.

The title piece became a centrepiece of their live shows for years, and Mason later named his own touring band after the album. When the drummer names his band after a record half a century later, you can assume he's fond of it.

Also at Kops: more Pink Floyd on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Pink Floyd Records / Columbia, a reissue of the 1968 album.