One of the peaks of weird in popular music, Ummagumma is also one of my favorite albums. The Live Album is, to my mind, of dubious quality (Astronomy Domine, for example, is better heard in its original context on Piper at the Gates of Dawn), exception made for the quite brilliant version of 'Careful with that Axe, Eugene'. Seen in its context, however, the Live Album is a touching tribute to Syd Barret who no longer performed with the band.

Even though Syd Barret's creativity and skill in composition had been lost, some of the compositions on the Studio Album are good, though they tend to lack the melodic and quite ingraspable traits that Barret's compositions features. Nevertheless, the Studio Album is original, to say the least: when the four men split up to work separately, their bizzare ideas and dreams could unravel completely and uncorrected and the result is a truly impressive variety of sounds and themes. The spectre of sounds, like human dreams, span from soothing harmony in 'Grantchester Meadows' to Wright's frightening Sysyphus-compositions.

Another common (and perhaps more historically correct) perception of Ummagumma is of it as an experiment: in Barret's absence, the band needed a restructuring and a new writer had to be appointed. Further, the band also experimented with various playbacks and samples and in the light of these experiences, they could produce more mainstream albums by the dawn of the 1970's.

The band had also perfected another of its trademarks by Ummagumma: the tradition of great covers. Not only is the 'picture is the picture in the picture ...' effect interesting, it becomes truly psychedelic and interesting as the pictures are not identical. As well, the cover features a reference to the film Gigi, with which the album is synchronized.

Whether an independent work of art or merely an experiment, Ummagumma remains an unique and invaluable musical experience. Certianly not as an introduction to psychedelia, but as a part of the experience at large, this album - and every aspect of it - remains among my favorites. While the loss of Syd Barret's genius was significant to music in general and Pink Floyd in particular, musical history without 'Ummagumma' would not have been quite the same.