The Incredible String Band went through a very definite
evolution over the course of their first three albums. Their eponymous debut (1966)
finds a stripped down traditional folk combo occasionally embellished with such
accoutrements as violin, mandolin, banjo, or whistle, but mostly staying happy
with Mike Heron and Robin Williamson’s acoustic guitars and elfin voices. The
droning opener “Maybe Someday” is the only hint of the more international
direction the Scots would take on their second album. On The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion (1967), ISB employed
sitar, finger cymbals, tamboura, gimbri—as well as drums and bass—to enliven
another set of concise and tuneful tunes, and the album stands as the most
accessible balance of Heron and Williamson’s songwriting and zeal for
non-Western instrumentation—the perfect portal into the ISB’s enchanted world. However,
it is their third album, The Hangman’s
Beautiful Daughter (1968), that is most often championed as the group’s
masterpiece because of its ambition and originality. Epics such as the
multi-sectioned “A Very Cellular Song” and the raga “Three Is a Green Crown”
now play amongst the compact pieces, yet all follow a mercurial path that may
alienate those hoping for more of the good-old knee stompers of ISB LPs past. Hangman’s is a grower that may never
actually grow on you, though it certainly isn’t as much of an alienating
“masterpiece” as, say, Trout Mask Replica,
and songs such as “Koeeaddi There” and “Witch’s Hat” are as magical as ever. “The
Minotaur’s Song” really mixes things up with its community light opera company
feel. More importantly, The Hangman’s
Beautiful Daughter really opened up the ISB format, allowing the guys to
make the ultimate use of their ambitions on the double LP Wee Tam/Big Huge released later in the year.
But let’s not get ahead of Heron and Williamson, because
only the first three albums are collected in a newly remastered double-disc set
on BGO Records (which actually gave the same treatment to Wee Tam/Big Huge last month). The remastering is fine, natural, and
not too loud, as some older BGO remasterings were. Cramming three albums onto
two CDs means that one has to get split, but The 5000 Spirits is conscientiously divided between its original
Side A and Side B, so it’s not too jarring. There is also a fat booklet with
all of the original liner notes (including Heron’s track-by-track notes for the
first album) and a new essay by John O’Regan. A nice package could only have been
improved with full-color, full-size (well, CD booklet-size) reproductions of
the three album’s original artwork… you’ll have to break out your magnifying
glass to take in The Fool’s marvelously dated art on the cover of The 5000 Spirits!
