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Incredible String Band – “U” 3

February 23, 2020 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

As was noted in the last ISB post, this is a remarkably long album, and almost certainly the “best value” full price album I have ever bought.

Anyway, we now get to Side 2, which kicks off with a brilliant instrumental called “Partial Belated Overture” (2.54 minutes), composed by Mike, who plays piano and [electric] guitar. Robin plays shanai and fiddle, and Rose plays bass. This is fantastic, urgent rocker, in the inimitable ISB style, and sheer ecstasy to hear.

Track 2 is another Heron composition, which expressly combines two very different songs in one, called “Light in Time of Darkness/Glad to See You” (10.18 [!] minutes. The first is a soft, slow romantic dirge, being abut four times longer than the latter, which is a piano rocker with vocals which are at times almost screamed. Mike sings solo vocals throughout, and Rose plays bass.

Track 3 is another Heron composition called “Walking Along With You” (3.58 minutes). It does indeed have an ambulatory feel to it, with Rose and Mike sharing the vocals, mostly in sweet harmony, with Mike paying guitar and Robin bass. it is an exceptionally pleasant and soothing song to listen to.

Track 4 is a Heron romp called “Hiram Pawnitof/Fairies’ Hornpipe (6.27 minutes). He wrote the song, but the instrumental part at the end is credited as Traditional. He plays guitar and mandolin and does solo vocals throuhout, Robin fiddle, Licorice spoons, and Rose bass.

The Side ends with another short Heron composed instrumental called “Bridge Theme” (2.15 minutes) (and which title is clearly intended as a link to the next track, Track 1 on Side 3). This is much more laid back than Track 1, and sounds a bit like the theme music for a 1930s film. Mike plays [electric] guitar, Robin shanai and soondri, Licorice drums, and Rose bass.

It will be observed, therfore, that Side 2 is very much a “Heron sandwich”, with the short instrumentals composed by him as the “slices of bread”.

Side 3 opens with yet another Heron composition called “Bridge Song” (8.45 minutes) [see what I mean?]. This is a lovely, deeply thoughtful and profound song, described as a conversation between “Beautiful Girl” and “Seeker”.

The album comes with a sheet with all the lyrics on. This shows it with the words for this song:

Pink Floyd – “The Dark Side Of The Moon” (3)

January 15, 2020 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

The second side is one long track. It really is impossible on the LP (but not of course the CD) to determine exactly where one track ends and the next begins, except of course for the start of the first track and the end of the last one. There is also a lot of that mumbling I mentioned earlier, but I now see that all this adds to the general brilliance of the album.

Track 1 is “Money”, arguably the best known of any Pink Floyd track, not least because it is still played in quite respectable financial advice programmes on the TV and radio. It kicks off with what can be best described as a cacophony of cash registers. Oddly, there is now something nostalgic about this, as they aren’t around any more; electronic tills have replaced them. It has three verses, the second and third being separated by a lengthy instrumental break, dominated by some upbeat jazzy saxophone playing by one Dick Parry. As with the soul singing on Side 1, to my teenage ears this was another great betrayal of all that the band stood for. Now I see it as an essential element of the masterpiece which this album comprises. It is a Waters composition which elides seamlessly into another one.

This is Track 2, “Us and Them”, and is classic Pink Floyd. It is the only other track on the LP to feature Dick Parry’s saxophone, but here it is much more subdued, and actually quite tasteful. This becomes Track 3, an instrumental called “Any Colour You Like”, which in turn becomes Track 4. This is “Brain Damage”, another Waters song, being notable for quoting the album title twice. This is the second one, which features in the last verse of the song:

“And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear

You shout and no one seems to hear

And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes

I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.”

This slides into the final track, Track 5, another Waters song called “Eclipse”. It is brilliant wistful cadence to this magnificent album.

A few posts ago I include a Melody Maker article from 24 November 1973, some 8 months after the release of the LP. This was the photo that accompanied the article:

Incredible String Band – “U” 2

December 29, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

This was one of the first full price albums I ever bought, the third I think after “Liege & Lief” by Fairport Convention and “Alchemy” by the Third Ear Band, and I bought it almost exactly 49 years ago, after Christmas 1970 but before New Year’s Day 1971.

I had heard the track “Puppet Song” on the radio, the first Incredible String Band music I had ever heard, and was immediately entranced by it.

The double album carries a subtitle or description: ” A surreal parable in song and dance concept by Incredible String Band and Stone Monkey”. It remains one of my favourite albums of all time, and is a very close second favourite ISB album after “Wee Tam and The Big Huge” [see above!!!].

Side 1 opens with a brilliant acoustic instrumental called “El Wool Suite” lasting an astonishing 9.02 minutes. Mike plays sitar, Robin gimbri, flute and clay drums, and Rose table and guitar. Every second of this is pure bliss.

There follow a couple of short typically comic/dark stuff short Robin songs. Track 2 is “The Juggler’s Song” (3.05 minutes) and 3 is “Time” (3.57 minutes). He is solo on the latter, providing vocal, 12 string guitar and mandolin. On the former he is joined by Licorice on vocal and plays guitar, bass and mandolin.

Track 4 is an extraordinary mock country and western song sung by a lady called Janet Shankman titled “Bad Sadie Lee”, lasting 3.52 minutes. Mike plays piano and adds backing vocals, Robin plays fiddle, Jew’s harp and washboard, both the girls provide backing vocals, and a chap named Peter Grant plays banjo. It is the most “wall of sound” track ever produced under the ISB banner.

Side 1 ends with a beautiful, soft, romantic, and very slightly pornographic epic called “Queen of Love”, coming in at 8.37 minutes. It is another Robin song where he sings the solo vocal and plays guitar and bass, and Janet Shankman plays harpsichord. Uniquely, I think, for an ISB track, this one also has a credit for the arrangement, going to one Tom Constanten.

It can now be observed that side 1 lasts an amazing 29 minutes, which is typical of all the 4 sides of the album. This was great value for money!

This is the back cover:

Pink Floyd – “The Dark Side Of The Moon” (2)

December 8, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

There are two odd things about this LP. The first is that it is liberally peppered with snatches of almost completely unintelligible spoken interludes. The second is that on both sides of the record, the tracks seamlessly elide into each other, so that you can’t tell where one ends and the next one begins; with one arguable exception.

Track 1 on Side 1 is a Nick Mason composition called “Speak To Me”. This is one of the “instrumentals” on the album, though none of them truly is because of that first peculiarity I mentioned; and that title is strangely ironic in that sense. It is a dramatic, staccato thing, and classic Pink Floyd to my teenage ears.

It becomes Track 2, “Breathe”, credited to the other three members of the band, and again this is classic Pink Floyd. The “principal” song has just two verses, each of 8 lines. In each case the first 4 are soft and gentle, positively soothing, while the second fours are louder and more urgent. Great stuff.

This becomes another “instrumental” called “On The Run”, a Gilmour/Waters composition; a busy little thing featuring much searing Gilmour guitar, and again classic Pink Floyd. This is the arguable exception to the “elision” oddity I mentioned above, because it ends with a “Reprieve” of “Breathe”! This is really strange, and just now I can’t recall any other example of the syndrome. What you get here is a third 8 line stanza of “Breathe”, following exactly the same pattern, ending with the couplet:

“Calls the faithful to their knees

To hear the softly spoken magic spells”

There is an almost discernible gap between that and the cacophonous alarm clocks which introduce The next track:

“Time”. I immediately made a connection here, that Cat Stevens had also earlier done a song with the same title. This one is credited to all four members of the band, and is once more classic Pink Floyd. It elides into track 5

This track ends Side 1, and is called “The Great Gig In The Sky”, written by Rick Wright the keyboards player, Not surprisingly then, it begins with an innocuously pleasant piano intro. Quite soon, however, a lady called Clare Torry starts to do some technically brilliant note perfect soul screaming and wailing. This does in fact turn out to be the main feature of the piece. I was just 17 years old when I heard this, having been a great fan of the band in respect of all its previous recordings, and I was horrified! What on earth was this stuff doing on a Pink Floyd album? I have to say that fairly soon after, I came to realise that this was in fact the best album the group had ever made, the first of a classic trilogy, and irrefutable evidence that this was a truly “progressive” band.

This is the back cover:

And, tucked inside my copy of the LP is this cutting from “Melody Maker” of 24 November 1973:

Incredible String Band – “U” 1

November 18, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

1970 saw this, one of the longest records with the shortest (equal) title (matched only by Jethro Tull’s “A”), and one of the shortest tracks with certainly the longest title, being the “B” side of Fairport Convention’s single “Now Be Thankful”. That short track was a lively folk rock instrumental called “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament for the 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat from the Straits of Loch Knombe, in the Year of Our lord 1727, on the Occasion of the Announcement of Her Marriage to the Laird of Kinleakie”.

“U” was the third full price album I ever bought, the first being Fairport Convention’s “Liege & Lief” and the second Third Ear Band’s “Alchemy” [for both of which see way above], and the first double LP I ever bought. This purchase occurred between Christmas and New Year at the end of 1970, very nearly a year after I got my first record player. It also occurred about six weeks before the UK converted to a decimal currency; and this leads nicely onto the front cover, and the curious syndrome of dual pricing:

Not visible, but still stuck on, is the price label. In old money, which of course is what I paid, the correct price is shown, 69/10, i.e. £3, nine shillings and tenpence. However, the decimal price is shown as £3.99, which would have been £3 nineteen shillings and tenpence, ten bob more, or in decimal 50 new pence more, than the correct price. I might try and get a close up of the price tag and post it later.

Pink Floyd – “The Dark Side Of The Moon” (1)

November 17, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

This album came out in March 1973, about 3 months before my A Levels and about 9 months before I left school. I was doing the babysitting job and so was able to buy it straight away,

It did of course turn out to be the band’s biggest selling LP.

My initial reaction to it, though, was that the band had sold out. Saxophones? Female soul singers? Tracks called “Time” and “Money”? To my prejudiced teenage ears, this was a gross betrayal of all the band had previously done.

This is the very famous indeed front cover, of course:

Incredible String Band – “Be Glad…” (2)

October 9, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

I have a VHS video of this film, and it is a joy to behold. It really is psychedelia at its zenith, featuring inter alia a dancing pirate.

The music on the album is typical of the group at this time, and all of it is unique to this record and utterly brilliant.

Side 1 has 5 tracks:

Come With Me

All Writ Down

Vishangro

See All The People

Waiting For You

Side 2 has just one long track, being the title track “The Song Has No Ending”. This is how it is described on the LP cover, very accurately:

“a collection of instrumental pieces featuring all four on their characteristic instruments.”

This is the back cover of the LP:

Pink Floyd – “Obscured By Clouds” (3)

September 7, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

Side 2 opens with a Gilmour composition called “Childhood’s End”, which is a very lovely, beautiful and varied song indeed; it makes a truly splendid introduction to the side.

Track 2 is a curious Waters composition called “Free Four”. It opens with the band counting from one to four, but starting with just one of them, two on two, three on three, and finally all four on four. it is impossible to tell whether the third is “three” or “free”. It is a bit of a plodding song, but nevertheless very pleasant to listen to, and basically concerns an old man’s memories of his youth. The lyrics are actually quite touching.

Track 3 is a Waters/ Wright composition called simply “Stay”, and in my view it is the best song on this album. It is a strong but soothing lullaby, wonderfully and slowly performed, with all the members of the band giving their all, both vocally and instrumentally. It is a work of pure genius, and deserves a pedestal of its own.

The album concludes with what for me has always been the worst track on the record. It is titled “Absolutely Curtains”, and one of only a handful of numbers credited to all four members of the group; there is a lesson in there somewhere. It starts off as a fairly standard Pink Floyd song, but the last half of it comprises some unaccompanied staccato chanting. As a teenager, when I bought this LP, I found this chanting immensely irritating. Being nearly 64 now, I have become much more forgiving, but I still don’t like it much.

The inner sleeves of Harvest Records in those days were adverts for their LP releases, and the one that came with this one was one of the best:

Of course I recognised almost all of these from the “Picnic” sampler – see WAY above!!!

Incredible String Band – “Be Glad…” (1)

August 25, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

The Incredible String Band.

While 1968 was the year the ISB released two or three LPs, depending how you count them, 1970 was the one when they released three albums, comprising 4 LPs. These were the only years they released more than one LP. The odd 1970 one is the music soundtrack of a film called “Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending”, and the LP has the same title. However, it was released on the Island label, whereas all the others were of course on Elektra. This is the front cover:

Pink Floyd – “Obscured By Clouds” (2)

August 11, 2019 · by listentomusicanywhere

Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.

Pink Floyd.

Track 3 on Side 1 is a beautiful, slightly mournful song called “Burning Bridges”. It is a slow, plodding sort of thing, with much swirling organ, and very pleasant indeed to listen to.

Track 4 is “The Gold it’s in the…” and is a stylish rocker of the type that only this band could ever do, and again is pure joy to hear.

Track 5 has another odd “partial” title: “Wot’s…uh the deal”. It is another slow, meandering and slightly mournful song, but here the organ is subdued.

Side 1 ends with Track 6, a gentle piano based instrumental called “Mudmen”. These characters appear to be unnervingly menacing in the film, but turn out to be utterly harmless. A picture from this scene is one of three from the film on the back cover of the LP:

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