He and Heron being the only members now, the Incredible String Band was re-launched with a strikingly ‘alternative’ quality. No sooner had the first album been released than the band temporarily broke up, with Palmer wanting to pursue a more traditional folk format and Williamson going off travelling in search of musical sounds that might inspire him to even more adventurous music. When he returned, he brought various instruments from foreign lands: Afghanistan, Morocco, and Bulgaria. The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion (1967) It was obvious that here was a new voice, a new perspective – conveying both a love of nature and a taste for metaphysics. If Gram Parsons was soon to proclaim that he was forging a ‘cosmic American music’, the the Incredible String Band had already forged a ‘cosmic British music’.
There is serenity in this verse: ‘The fallen leaves that jewel the ground / They know the art of dying / And leave with joy their glad gold hearts / In the scarlet shadows lying’. There is audacity in this: ‘For rulers like to lay down laws / And rebels like to break them / And the poor priests like to walk in chains / And God likes to forsake them’. Here the vocal delivery (to be maintained throughout later work) is that of a Celtic bard – or even Druid priest – rather than the average folk-club performer, and the lyrics explore a mystical dimension. An outstanding track was Williamson’s ‘October Song’, which drew the attention of Bob Dylan, who rated it highly. Their first album largely consisted of music in the recognisable folk idiom. However, their three members – Robin Williamson, Mike Heron, and Clive Palmer – demonstrated their skill with various instruments and showed a flair for lyrical originality. True, there are impressive songs on later albums, but as the band changed its form and its focus, it never quite captured the magic of their early work. Their reputation stands or falls based on their four first albums. The Beatles declared their admiration, as (surprisingly) did the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin: all three bands were influenced by them, and their musical experimentation was inspired by the Incredible String Band. Later (and even more surprisingly), Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys and David Bowie both sang their praises.
I didn’t discover until after a long while following the career of the Incredible String Band that the members of this Edinburgh-based Scottish group didn’t choose their name because they set out from the start to forge a reputation for original and amazing music, but simply because they performed regularly at the Incredible Folk Club in Glasgow in the mid-1960s. I see why I was mistaken. Whether or not one liked them, it was soon clear that they were doing something new in popular music.
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