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The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is the debut album by English rock band Pink Floyd, the only album made under founding member Syd Barrett’s leadership. It was released on 5 August 1967 by EMI Columbia.
The studio album borrows its name from the title of chapter seven of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, which refers to the nature god Pan, who plays his pan pipes at dawn.
The album was recorded at EMI Studios in London’s Abbey Road from February to May 1967. The band consisted of Syd Barrett (lead vocals, lead guitar), Nick Mason (drums), Roger Waters (bass, vocals), and Richard Wright (keyboards, vocals). Barrett was the band’s primary songwriter, though two tracks on the album are credited to the band collectively and one track was written by Waters. The album was produced by Norman Smith, who would go on to produce two more albums for Pink Floyd.
In the United States, the album was released as Pink Floyd in October on Tower Records, with an altered track listing that omitted three songs and included the UK non-album single “See Emily Play”. In the UK, no singles were released from the album, but in the US, “Flaming” was offered as a single. Two of its songs, “Astronomy Dominé” and “Interstellar Overdrive”, became long-term mainstays of the band’s live setlist, while other songs were performed live only a handful of times. The album has been hailed as a pivotal psychedelic rock album.
For the 40th anniversary, a two-disc edition was released on 4 September 2007, and a three-disc set was released on 11 September.
The packaging – designed by Storm Thorgerson – resembles a cloth-covered book, along with a twelve-page reproduction of a Syd Barrett notebook. Discs one and two contain the full album in its original mono mix (disc one), as well as the alternative stereo version (disc two).
Both have been newly remastered by James Guthrie. The third disc includes several Piper-era outtakes from the Abbey Road vaults, along with the band’s first three mono singles.
Unreleased material includes an alternative, shorter take of “Interstellar Overdrive” that was previously thought lost, the pre-overdubbed abridged mix of “Interstellar Overdrive” previously only available on an EP in France, an alternative mix of “Matilda Mother” as it appeared early in the sessions and also the 1967 stereo mix of “Apples and Oranges”, which features extra untrimmed material at the beginning and end.
As part of Record Store Day 2018 a new mono remaster was released by James Guthrie, Joel Plante and Bernie Grundman.
The vinyl masters were cut in 2018 from the original analogue mono master tape.
The record is pressed on heavyweight vinyl and comes with a black poly-lined inner bag.
To differentiate this mono from the stereo, Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis (with Peter Curzon) created some additional packaging in the form of a card envelope which features a psychedelic design, including a gold embossed version of the graphic by Syd Barrett which also features on the reverse of the original mono LP.