THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND

The first Incredible String Band album should probably come with an asterisk for those who mostly know the band from their late sixties/early seventies work. Or at least the myriad of reissues should have been issued under a subtitled name. Good music to be sure, but there’s not a whole lot here that ties the album to the band’s later sound.

Clive Palmer initially brought Robin Williamson and Mike Heron together, and the three of them would drift apart following this release as Palmer and Williamson pursued their respective metaphysical muses in the East while Heron returned briefly to his career as a pub band player and sometime session musician.

There is very little of the psychedelic sound of the band’s later works here; none in fact. There’s no odd string tuning, no exotic instrumentation (unless you consider a mandolin or banjo to be exotic), no electric instruments, and very little percussion. And no women - Licorice McKechnie would be promoted from Williamsons’ girlfriend to band member in 1968 and Rose Simpson would join shortly after. What is here is some very good traditional folk music of the Anglo variety with subtle hints that the band members had the makings of something more exciting.

The original release’s cover is a bit humorous with each band member displaying an oddly-shaped and old-fashioned acoustic instrument in Amazing Blondel fashion. I don’t know what two of the three are but they both appear to be variations on a lute, while the third seems to be a one-string mandolin of some sort. I’m sure I’m wrong about all three of them, but in any case there is no indication that any of those instruments are actually played on the album. Instead Palmer and Heron both play mostly acoustic guitar while Williamson alternates between guitar, mandolin and violin, and also adds a bit of wooden whistle and kazoo from time to time. Palmer plays banjo as well but in quite subdued fashion for that instrument, so don’t expect to break into a hoedown dance while listening to him.

These are all quite short tunes in common mid-twentieth century fashion, just a few minutes each with mostly strumming or picking guitar, mellow vocals and occasional harmonized backing, and garnished with flute-like whistles, soft banjo picking and mostly imperceptible violin weaving in the background. You get the idea.

A few of these tunes seem vaguely familiar to me even though I first heard this album only a couple years ago. “Empty Pocket Blues” and “Can't Keep Me Here” both seem to be either based on or at least similar to something traditional I must have heard somewhere years ago. The rest of the album is fairly stock folk stuff, with nothing in particular standing out. One odd tune is the scandalously-named “Ni**ertown”, a banjo led instrumental that sounds more like it came out of the American Cumberlands than from Britain. This is also the only track where Palmer’s banjo dominates.

The vocals on “Smoke Shovelling Song” sound a bit like early Dylan, but the rest of these tunes are fairly unexceptional though well-played. If you’re looking to discover the band start with their mid- career albums (1967-1970) and save this one for later. I should give this two stars since it really is for collectors only, but the quality of the music and the cleaned-up reissues are both excellent, so three stars but mostly recommended to completionists or those who get into traditional folk music.

peace