ALCHEMY

The first album from Third Ear Band sets the tone for the whole of their discography (but not the posthumous release The Magus just out this year) with their highly experimental sound based on medieval drones. All of the music is acoustic, slow evolving and have a small hypnotic power but nothing transcendental either. Some eastern influenced improvisation can bring a druggy feel to the music. DJ legend John Peel played Jew's Harp on this record.

If medieval music makes you drool with excitement and anticipation , beware as this is nothing in the Gryphon-type of music , but really more in the RIO genre and has a definitive minimalism influence. This debut album is IMHO the better one to get a good idea of what their real sound is: a long drone with many instrumental solos a bit like Terry Riley's A Rainbow In Curved Air.

A bit of a borderline inclusion for the Archives , this album is much worth a spin. Although many musicologists will not agree with this other classification, you should not have trouble finding TEB alongside contemporary classical music in libraries. I have also seen TEB records in classical music shpos filed after Cage and Stockhausen.