Buying the albums sampled on “Picnic”.
This was the second LP by the group, and although actually eponymous, is often referred to as “Elements”. This is because of the titles of the 4 tracks on the record, viz “Air”, “Earth”, “Fire” and “Water”. The last of these is the shortest, and was the sampled track on “Picnic”.
I had first come across the group in the autumn of 1969, a few months before I got my first record player. This was on the John Peel Sunday Programme, which in those days was an hour long show 4.00 until 5.00 p.m. on Sundays on BBC Radio 1. It was a sort of sister show of “Top Gear”, which was John Peel’s two hour show on Saturday afternoons. While “Top Gear” was a mixture of records and live tunes from sets specially recorded for the programme, the Sunday Programme was just two 30 minute live shows. The one I remember best was the one which featured Edgar Broughton Band (qv above) and Third Ear Band. I just loved both of these sets from the word go, the Broughtons of course, in particular, for their splendid audience-participation chant “Out Demons Out!” The Third Ear Band could not have been more different, producing a raga based ambient music which was decades before its time, and which I found immensely attractive. We were told that the group featured one “Ursula” on ‘cello.
Their first LP “Alchemy”, which does not in fact feature Ursula, was one of the first 4 full price LPs I ever bought, and remains on of my favourite albums to this very day. It is likely that I shall devote more time to that one than to the sampled record, but it is to “Elements” that I shall return next time.
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