Member:
chromablue
Date:
5/21/2003
Like them or detest them, this is the ISB's masterpiece and a recording unlike anything before or after. Following various exploratory trips to India and Africa, Mike Heron and Robin Williamson (and their girlfriends) were let loose in a 16-tack studio for the first time, and this marvelous, baffling, raggedly beautiful album was the result.
It's folk, Jim, but not as anyone knew it. Most of the songs start out one way and end up somewhere different. Some have choruses and conventional structures, but others (such as Heron's epic "A Very Cellular Song") are collections of themes and variations which almost seem to be made up as they went along. The wide variety of ethnic instruments deployed on this record are used mostly for colouring: they are not played well, but it's good to have them played at all. There's even a pastiche of light opera in "The Minotaur's Song".
High spots for me would be the mystical "Three Is A Green Crown", the Indian-tinged "Nightfall" and the spooked "Witches Hat". Oh, damn it, it's all good. Don't ask me to explain the songs though (unless you pass me that joint first).
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