London '66/'67 (1995)

This disc contains just a portion of the results of two sessions recorded Jan. 11 and 12, 1967, at Sound Techniques in London. The band line-up at the time was Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Rick Wright.

The sessions were co-funded by filmmaker Peter Whitehead as part of a documentary he was making about the London social scene, called "Tonite Let's All Make Love in London," named after a line in an Allen Ginsberg poem. According to the CD's liner notes, Whitehead was having an affair with Barrett's then-girlfriend, who convinced him to include the Floyd in his film.

Whitehead ended up using portions of "Interstellar Overdrive" and "Nick's Boogie" in his movie. Unfortunately, the soundtrack album released in 1968 included three truncated versions of "Interstellar Overdrive," and nothing else from Floyd. Producer Joe Boyd took the two other songs recorded during the sessions, "Arnold Layne" and "Candy and a Current Bun," to EMI. EMI signed the band and issued the songs as a single March 11, 1967, on its Columbia label. Despite a radio ban in England — "Arnold Layne" documents the silly, sordid tale of a thieving cross-dresser — it reached number 20 in the U.K., but didn't break the chart in the United States.

It wasn't until 1990 that the complete version of "Interstellar Overdrive," considered by many to be the ultimate recording of that instrumental classic, was added to the soundtrack, along with the previously unreleased "Nick's Boogie," an all-out cerebral instrumental along the lines of "A Saucerful of Secrets" and "Careful With That Axe, Eugene."

In 1995, the two lost tracks were issued together as the "London '66-'67" EP, including a brief history of the band up to the time of the recordings, and several photos of the session and the like.