The accidental archive: How the 1996 'London '66-'67' release captured Pink Floyd before they were famous

Most people know Pink Floyd as the stadium-filling, concept-album-making machine of the 1970s. But a 1996 compilation called London ‘66-‘67 yanks the curtain back on the band’s scrappy pre-fame era, when they were still called The Tea Set (and before that, The Abdabs). The release collected early Syd Barrett-led recordings from 1966–1967, including the original demo of “Arnold Layne” and a raw take of “Interstellar Overdrive” that sounds nothing like the Piper at the Gates of Dawn version. It dropped quietly as a limited-edition CD via the See for Miles label, mostly to satisfy collectors who’d been trading bootlegs of those sessions for years.

The story behind it is a mix of luck and archival impulse. These tracks had been sitting in the EMI vaults—some recorded at Sound Techniques studio in London, others during the band’s first proper sessions with producer Joe Boyd. By 1996, Pink Floyd’s management (and surviving members) had little interest in digging up Syd-era relics; the band was still litigating with Barrett over royalties and rights. But the tape reels survived because engineer Derek “Doc” Sheridan saved them from being wiped, and the release happened largely through the persistence of compiler Andy Wickham. The result is the clearest audio document of a band still figuring out its identity—playing R&B covers, writing absurdist pop, and only just beginning to stretch out into the space-rock jams that would define them. It’s a time capsule of the exact moment The Tea Set became Pink Floyd.