Celebrating what would have been Syd’s eightieth birthday, Clowns and Jugglers, The Songs of Syd Barrett brings together thirty-three brand-new studio recordings, previously unreleased material and standout live performances from a diverse assortment of artists influenced and inspired by Barrett’s work in and beyond Pink Floyd.
Set over two CDs (or with a truncated, twenty-two-track version on double vinyl), the collection has been ably mastered by Jon Astley (The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, The Who and David Bowie) and features evocative artwork from Mark Wilkinson (Iron Maiden, Marillion and Judas Priest), making this an attractive proposition for Floyd fans.
The album opens with a lovely tribute, not only to Syd but also to the late, great Rick Wright, who takes the lead vocal on this rare Pink Floyd performance of Arnold Layne (recorded Live At The Barbican). It’s a nice reminder of just how integral Rick was to the band’s sound, even though he too rarely took the lead vocal (see also: Wearing The Inside Out). It’s a great version, beautifully captured here, and it lifts the curtain nicely on this all-star tribute.
Next up, we get a live track (this time from The Roundhouse) from Nick Mason’s joy-fuelled Saucerful of Secrets band. A surprisingly visceral version of Astronomy Domine, it highlights the enduring power of songs recorded nearly sixty years ago and it also nods to the strength of the band Nick gathered for his brilliant trip down memory lane.
With various members of Floyd having set the scene, Martha Wainwright steps up with a lovely, folky, and suitably whimsical take on See Emily Play. While it lacks some of the hazy charms of the Floyd original, there’s no denying the strength of the hook, and it’s also good to hear Martha make the track her own. The Mystery Jets take things in a woozier direction on Love You, swapping out the acoustic guitars of the original for reverb-drenched surf noise that suits the sound of the song so well, you’d swear it had always sounded like that.
Slightly less successful is Chapter 24 (Live In São Paulo) courtesy of Violeta De Outono. It’s a solid version, to be sure, but it is also a little too in thrall to the original, lacking some of the playful spirit invested in the covers offered up by Martha and the Mystery Jets. Rather more on point is Kula Shaker’s No Good Trying/Interstellar Overdrive, which finds Crispin and his crew having fun with a spacey pairing of tracks that speaks to the band’s strengths. Even better is Voyage 35’s incredibly groovy Apples & Oranges, which recalls Trifecta’s tongue-in-cheek prog musings (where are they, by the way? They’d have been a perfect fit for this project).
Moving way beyond the source material is a fantastic, late-night reimagining of Octopus courtesy of Diana Silveira & The Psychedelic Circus. With Diana’s smoky vocals and a soundtrack that instantly conjures the scent of spilled beer and fragrant cigarette smoke, it’s a fantastic reworking and one of the bravest cuts so far. In contrast, Rosalie Cunningham’s Lucifer Sam is pretty faithful to the Floyd original, although the vocals are delivered with considerably more energy. It falls, therefore, to No Man genius Tim Bowness to step even further into the sonic wilderness with a skittering and all-too-short version of Golden Hair.
For those lamenting the absence of whimsy, the ludicrous Effervescing Elephant (Jim Sclavunos) lands like a kids’ cartoon, which makes Men On The Border’s stabbing take on Scream Thy Last Scream all the more surprising. With crunchy guitars, pastoral strings, and theatrical vocal, it earns its place next to Effervescing Elephant, only to have the stuffing knocked out of it by Pünk Barrett, who offer up a brilliantly ramshackle acoustic take on Bike. It leaves Soft Machine to wrap up disc one with an off-kilter, twenty-minute abstract jazz rendition of Rhamadan.
Wait.
Did I just write twenty minutes?
Yep, it turns out it’s not a typo but, go figure, if you’re going to pay tribute to an artist as wilfully diverse as Syd Barrett, you’re not going to achieve it (or at least not to any satisfactory degree) by playing it safe and cleaving to the three-minute pop songs that do, admittedly, litter his catalogue like so many diamonds.
And, much as Syd’s original (which was long buried until it was unearthed in 2010 for the David Gilmour-produced Introducing Syd Barrett album), Soft Machine’s outing is an absolute highlight of disc one and arguably worth the price of admission alone.
Opening disc two, Radhika Ft. Norman Blake & Future Pilot A.K.A. deliver a gorgeously spacey version of Matilda Mother. It’s followed by a stripped-back acoustic take on Gigolo Aunt recorded Live At Acheron by Robyn Hitchcock. Sticking with the pop side of Barrett’s oeuvre, LOVE with Johnny Echols serve a respectable Baby Lemonade, while Henge have a huge amount of fun on a nearly unrecognisable jazz-psyche fusion version of Terrapin – here rendered like Barry White fronting a Wendy Carlos soundtrack.
Henge are not the only ones to slip overboard. Dave Harris & Zeus B Held may stick close to the script with Two Of A Kind but that does nothing to stop Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats turning Long Gone into a psych-doom nightmare that is so mired in distortion and noise that it sounds like it was recorded on some aging tape deck and then fed back through a broken speaker.
Perhaps in recognition of just how weird things have been getting, Theo Travis / Richko Vocal make an effort to steady the ship with a liquid, flute-washed Late Night. Similarly, La Forma Delle Nuvole prefer to focus on the warmth that lies at the heart of Love Song. Interestingly, Golden Hair (which was covered so successfully on disc one by Tim Bowness), is given a very different but equally wonderful interpretation by Jennifer Gentle, who turns it into a haunting lullaby that seems to drift from the speakers. It’s followed by a full-blown folk reworking of Scarecrow from Pünk Barrett (the only non-Floyd artist to get two tracks), which only goes to show that you can drop pretty much any lyric over this kind of folksy backdrop and call it a cover.
It’s back to the plot with Martin Stephenson, who digs into Here I Go and comes up with The Beatles, while Men On The Border opt for a rather more literal take on Apples & Oranges. One of my favourite Barrett songs is up next, as Sterling Roswell Mary Stuart and Tre deliver a stoned take on Dominoes, which is something of a lo-fi treat musically, although the laughter that creeps across the vocal does become a touch distracting. Preferable is Anthem’s Opel Stone, which lives in a crystalline aura of reverb – a setting of which Barrett would undoubtedly have approved.
Two strong, neo-psych cuts land back to back next. The first of these, Crystal Teardrop’s helium-vocalled Candy and a Currant Bun, nods to Lilys (they of Nanny In Manhattan fame), while the quirky Wined and Dined is similarly lost in a world of patchouli-scented smoke thanks to the tender ministrations of Dream Machine. Very different but really strong is No Man’s Land, David Devant and his Spirit Wife nodding to latter-day Iggy Pop, while Warmduscher’s take on Maisie is as salacious as they come, coming across as a sleazy Death in Vegas.
The album wraps up with another tribute to a great artist as the late David Bowie joins David Gilmour on stage at The Royal Albert Hall for a boisterous Arnold Layne. It’s an emotional finale to an impressive record that manages to offer up consistently interesting takes on Syd Barrett’s remarkably diverse work.
It’s rare that a thirty-three-track tribute album manages to land its punches so consistently. And yet here, on Clowns and Jugglers, the curators have done a remarkable job. Moreover, by steadfastly refusing to play it safe, they have effectively represented Syd Barrett’s broad appeal, with Warmduscher, Tim Bowness, Henge, Radhika Ft. Norman Blake & Future Pilot A.K.A., and Diana Silveira X The Psychedelic Circus standing out as being particularly innovative with their takes on the source material. Perfect for fans and newcomers alike, Clowns And Jugglers is a warm-hearted tribute to an artist whose influence continues to burn brightly. 9/10
