A recent animated video was uploaded to Syd Barrett’s YouTube channel for the song “Love You” from his first solo album, The Madcap Laughs. This track captures the playful and whimsical style that Syd Barrett was known for during his time with Pink Floyd. You can view the video below and read some insight from the artist behind these amazing animations.
ICE-CREAM S’CUSE ME (I’ve seen you looking good the other evening) “Love you” was released on Syd Barrett’s debut solo album “The Madcap Laughs”. “Love you” is one of a handful songs on the album that echo the up-beat childish tone that had made Syd famous with Pink Floyd. Beyond that observation not much is known. Parts of Soft Machine helped flesh out the track.
In 1993 EMI released a rather peculliar, but welcome, treat for Syd fans. “Crazy diamond” offered Syds three albums, Madcap, Barrett and Opel, rereleased, remixed and with new outtakes – previously only partially available in lower quality. All of this presented in a CD longbox with colourful and playful landscapes representing the music. The art was designed by illustrator and animator Alan Rogers. Rogers’ work includes several animations for UK TV children’s programming such as Bod, The Flumps, Pigeon Street and Rub-a-Dub-Dub. Together with fellow animator Peter Lang, he founded the Cut-Out Animation Company; specialising in making mostly children’s animations using the cut-out technique. Rogers was approached by Phil Smee, who had been attached to the “Crazy Diamond” project as a project designer. Through this collaboration Rogers created the strikingly different artwork for the box set.
ARTIST ON THE BORDER: “I was lucky to catch up with Alan at an early point in pre-production. The Syd Barrett project has to make some sort of sense, and to me drawing connecting lines between persons, places and other things Barrett is a good start. “Crazy diamond” was apparently suitable for this type of animation as well as a welcome challenge. Luckily I was able to contact Alan and ask his permission to which he replied: “I’m seeing Phil (Smee) for lunch next week. I’ll bring it up”. Next time we emailed they approved my request to make an animation out of their work. A daunting task considering that he is a professional cut-out animator with years of work to his name.
Without me knowing it, I was about to reverse engineer Alans work, because little did I know that the “Crazy diamond” covers were made with cut-out technique. Each element in the image painted separately in watercolours and then cut up and reassembled. This is what I did in reverse. I spoke to Alan about that when showing him the animation. Alan insists that he still has the individual elements in his personal archive, but they are probably filed incorrectly, as he was unable to locate them. In a strange twist of events, I now have the digital cut-outs to his work. Alan is still working in illustration and has approved this official Syd Barrett animation.
