The Incredible String Band

The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion / The Hangman?s Beautiful Daughter / Wee Tam & The Big Huge

(Fledg?ling)

The Incredible String Band were originally convened in Edinburgh as a duo, later a trio, playing more-or-less traditional music in the city?s folk clubs. Signed to Elektra by Joe Boyd, they recorded one album with him and then disbanded, with founder members Clive Palmer lighting out on the hippie trail and Robin Williamson, accompanied by girlfriend Licorice McKechnie, for Morocco. Williamson returned, as Heron describes it in his notes to “The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion” (1967), carrying with him the influence of “the ideas and instruments he had bought back?The dour Scottish stone of the walls was kissed by the warm winds of North Africa”. You can hear this influence overtly in fleeting moments on “5000 Spirits” such as the intro and outro to “You Know What I Could Be”, but mostly it?s more subtly felt, an infusion of Morocco?s “soft perfumed air” as Heron has it.

The eclectic instrumental palette that Heron and Williamson subsequently adopted is immediately striking. No need, for them, of the somewhat awkward orchestrations that Joe Boyd had to concoct for Nick Drake. Each of the three albums considered here ? the cornerstones of the ISB?s legacy, issued alongside the d?but in remastered versions under supervision from their original producer (Boyd) and engineer John Wood ? features guests, both professional musicians (Danny Thompson, then of Pentangle, on “5000 Spirits”) and girlfriends (Licorice, on all three albums) alike. These guests collectively contribute bass, piano and organ, sitar, harps, violin and percussion to an already heady brew, their presence is surely down to a presiding communal impulse.

Heron and Williamson?s instinct for the radical instrumental colouration was fearlessly boundless and effortlessly spot-on. On “5000 Spirits”, Heron, who was initially more a rock musician than a folkie, is credited simply with harmonica and guitar, but by the time of “The Hangman?s Beautiful Daughter” (1968) he has also picked up sitar, Hammond organ, hammered dulcimer and harpsichord. Williamson, more the cultural magpie, contributes bowed and bass gimbri, guitar, flute, sitar, tamboura, drums, rattles, oud and mandolin to “5000 Spirits”, and diversifies with pan pipe, Jew?s harp and water harp on “Hangman?s Daughter”. The credits suggest no paring back on “Wee Tam and The Big Huge” (also 1968), but by then instrumental exposition has become subservient to both artists’ increasingly authoritative songwriting.

The three albums (Wee Tam and The Big Huge, now a double CD, was originally released as separate albums in the United States only) mark a distinct trajectory. “5000 Spirits” is a notable advancement on the ISB?s d?but album, but in certain aspects it remains very much the sum of its influences. However the duo?s freshness of approach to orchestration already marks them out as peerless, as do the idiosyncrasy and freshness of their song writing. Both Williamson and Heron have distinctive authorial voices, with Heron the relatively grounded counterpoint to Williamson?s more psychedelic world view. Each takes the lead vocal on their own compositions, but in the musics? realisation their talents knit together beautifully ? and this despite a reportedly profound mutual antagonism.

“The Hangman?s Daughter” album sees both men?s compositional skills fully honed and the ISB creating music which, in its full depth and richness, cannot fully be assessed in terms of prior influences. The duo make uniquely fulsome and adventurous use of the then newly-minted possibilities of multi-track recording to create a rich and evocative production on many layers of both sound and meaning. The range of influences apparent here is vast, taking in Gilbert and Sullivan (“The Minotaur?s Song”), American spiritual (The Pindar Family?s “Bid You Goodnight”, which is at the root of “A Very Cellular Song”) and Mediaeval chant (“The Water Song”), but everything is subsumed in the ISB?s own peculiar aesthetic. It?s a glorious achievement that perhaps couldn?t be repeated.

It was followed in surprisingly short order by the abundance of new songs collected on With Wee Tam and The Big Huge. Here the ISB step back from complexity but consolidate their skills as songwriters, engaging with a new maturity the themes that run throughout their cannon, which might be loosely summarised as the substance, meanings and truth of life, though that risks making them sound either too dour or too dippy.

At this remove of time, and on first (re)acquaintance with the ISB, perhaps they can sound overtly peculiar. A younger listener than myself recently remarked that 5000 Spirits? “The Minotaur?s Song” sounds ruinously Pythonesque, which I take as a sign that the common (and in the late ?60s prevalent) influence of Gilbert and Sullivan has latterly faded in the cultural memory. Yet the comic aspect of “The Minotaur?s Song” is intentional, and the ISB ever had a keen sense of the theatrical. This, by all accounts, manifested itself entertainingly in their live performances. Yet all such playfulness is offset by an equal measure of gravitas. Robin Williamson, author of “The Minotaur?s Song”, also contributed to “Hangman?s Daughter” the brooding intensity of “Three is a Green Crown”, and then of course there is Heron?s “A Very Cellular Song”, which is exceptional in the ISB songbook for its length at 13 minutes, a codex of sorts, as I?ve already noted, which encompasses both the Pindar?s Bahamian spiritual and yogic exhortation (”(may) the pure light within you guide you”).

In subsequent years there would be other offerings from the Incredible String Band, but none to match these. In his memoir of the era, “White Bicycles”, Joe Boyd echoes the generally accepted view that after converting to Scientology the duos? artistic abilities were critically diluted. But if the influence of these classic recordings is hard to discern in the music of today, then that?s testament to their individualism. You can readily discern their sway over the now-established ?freak folk? constituency, particularly its leading light Devendra Banhart (compare “Cousin Caterpillar” from Big Huge, say, to anything in the Banhart songbook), but for any music of comparable individuality and invention you really have to cast the net much wider. The only artist I can think of who convincingly fits the bill musically is Finland?s Jan Anderz?n, a.k.a Kemialliset Yst?v?t. So it?s wonderful to finally have these essential albums available again, sounding fresher and much, much clearer than on previous releases. All three titles come nicely packaged (albeit in digipaks rather than the cardboard sleeves of Fledg?ling?s earlier Chris McGregor reissues) with brief reflections (one per album) from Heron, Williamson, and Joe Boyd.

Tim’s Star Ratings;

The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion -3.5 Stars

The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter-4.5 Stars

Wee Tam And The Big Huge-4 Stars

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