May 14, 1971 - Relics

A long two months since my last release, but only seven months after "Atom Heart Mother", Pink Floyd released a compilation album on May 14, 1971 titled "Relics". It contains some early singles, b-sides, one unreleased song and a handful of songs off of their first three albums. Because of this, I do not have this entire album, as about half of it's tracks have already been heard. There are 6 new tracks: the first three all feature Syd Barrett on guitar and the last three are with David Gilmour, giving us a great look still at some new early-era Floyd. Let's check it out!

The first song on the album is an old single called "Arnold Layne". It's led by a bass riff by Roger Waters and has that classic Barrett singing. Rick Wright plays a cool organ bit between verses and it's a fairly tame song. Track 3 is another early single titled "See Emily Play" which has a trippy organ opening. Barrett sings pretty well on this one and is backed by Waters. Barrett plays electric and slide guitar on this one, and Wright plays a cool bit on tack piano in the chorus. Wright also plays the harpsichord and delivers a very trippy solo on that for another fun psychedelic song. Starting at track 5, the next three songs were all B-sides, although the album does not include the singles. The first is "Paint Box" which has Barrett on acoustic guitar, and along with piano, bass, and some nice drum fills by Nick Mason has a really solid opening. Wright is on lead vocals for this song, and his voice sounds great. This song has great contributions from everyone and is very cool, especially the piano by Wright. We enter the Gilmour era as David sings and plays acoustic guitar on the next track "Julia Dream". He sings softly and it's a rather sad sounding song, but it does have some cool Mellotron by Wright. He also plays organ towards the end of the song along with some more trippy Mellotron in an interesting blend of acoustic ballad and psychedelia. Track 7 is the studio version of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" which we heard live on "Ummagumma". Wright plays some fantastic organ on this song as well as the vibraphone. Aside from Waters saying the name of the song, there are no vocals and it's easy to see why this song would become a live staple in their early set. There is so much good organ as well as awesome guitar by Gilmour, it really is great stuff. It gets quiet at the end with some trippy wordless noises by Waters and Gilmour and is ripe for further experimentation on stage. The final song I have off this record was the only brand new song, written and sung by Waters titled "Biding My Time". He starts off with some slow bass and Gilmour plays a cool guitar riff. Wright joins on piano and Waters sings in an almost blues style that sounds pretty good, although it's all fairly quiet with no drums. We even hear Wright ay the trombone on this song, showing off his multi-instrument skills. It sounds really good and reminds me a bit of King Crimson. Mason joins in on drums now as Waters plays a great bass riff to back a fantastic part with guitar and trombone. This instrumental bit goes on until the end of the song and it sounds amazing. An excellent new song that I hope is indicative of what is to come on their next album!

That is the end of "Relics" and I am certainly very happy to add these 6 songs to my library. While I will not compare this release to their other studio albums, it does have several good songs on it for sure. Pink Floyd's record company EMI released this album because at the time Floyd had zero songs written for their next album when they went into the studio and they thought it might be some time before their next release. While I hope that is not the case, I'm glad they made some of this older material available. Back to full albums again next month, until then!