THE 5000 SPIRITS OR THE LAYERS OF THE ONION

The music on the album is acoustic psychadelic folk with some progressive elements. The instrumentation is varied throughout the album and in addition to acoustic guitars, which are the dominant instrument on the album, we are treated with mandolin, oud, gimbri, flute, assortive percussion, harmonica, bass and double bass, tamboura, piano, violin and sitar. The two main songwriters, Robin Williamson and Mike Heron, handles most of the vocals on the album. Licorice McKechnie sings some additional female vocals. The vocals are warm and at times quirky and humourous. There are lots of harmony vocals in the songs which adds an extra dimension. The atmosphere in the songs are mostly jolly but there are darker moments too which gives the album good variation. As for progressive elements they are mostly present in the longest song on the album The Mad Hatter´s Song. With its 5:40 minutes long playing time the song is given time and space to develop in unpredictable directions. Other than that most of the tracks are actually pretty straight forward, but minor progressive ideas appear from time to time. The overall quality of the songs on the album is very high. I enjoy each track on the album and haven´t found anything I would call sub par. The lyrics are warm and humourous and songs like The Hedgehog's Song, No Sleep Blues and Little Cloud make me smile and wish I could make something that brilliant.

The production is warm and suits the music perfectly.

The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion is my first encounter with The Incredible String Band, but it won´t be my last. I think it´s an abslutely brilliant acoustic psychadelic folk album and a 4 star rating is fully deserved.

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