The Incredible String Band - 5000 Spirits / Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

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Free Music Notes for 5000 Spirits / Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

Free Music Review: TWO OF THEIR MOST IMPORTRANT RECORDINGS TOGETHER
Hit: 5 Stars

The set opens with Mike's `Chinese white' - the bowed gimbri played by Robin on this track lets the listener know right away that things have `expanded' a bit since the band's 1966 release. `The bent twig of darkness grows the petals of the morning', sings Mike - a beautiful image worthy of traditional Asian poetry. Mike's other songs on this album run the gamut from love songs (`Painting box' and the eternally lovely `Gently tender') to humorous looks at our place in the world (`Little cloud' and `The hedgehog's song') to a song offering encouragement to the listener to reach for his full potential (`You know what you could be'). The seriousness of some of his topics is gently offset by a childlike quality that, through the ensuing years, would infuse most of his writing with an innocence that would endear it to his fans.

Robin's offerings here are for the most part more serious than Mike's - but there is humor in his writing as well, as is evidenced by `No sleep blues' and the hilarious `Way back in the 1960s'. His `First girl I loved' - covered by Judy Collins as `First boy I loved' on her WILDFLOWERS album - is simply one of the most beautiful songs ever written to a first love, looking back with honesty and tenderness on the gifts exchanged, both physical and emotional. His guitar work on this song is (as always) astonishingly creative and lovely. In 'The eyes of fate', he muses `O who can see in the eyes of Fate all life alone in its chronic pattern?' He is one of the most amazingly talented writers ever to pen a verse.

THE HANGMAN'S BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER is the third album by the ISB, recorded in late 1967 and released in early 1968. Combining instruments and melodies from the far corners of the earth with lyrics unequalled in their day (and rarely since) reflecting on everything from humankind to the natural world, from love to violence, from ancient mysticism to modern realities, the ISB made music like no one else. It spoke - and still speaks - to the heart, the soul, the mind and the body.

The album begins with a trio of Robin Williamson compositions, extremely varied in their presentation, but all tied together by myth. 'Koeeoaddi there' mixes images from Williamson's childhood, including imaginings, songs and games shared with his playmates (including Licorice McKechnie). The variegated visions are pulled together by the chant that becomes the refrain: 'Earth, water, fire and air met together in a garden fair - put in a basket bound with skin. If you answer this riddle, you'll never begin'. The third track, 'Witch's hat', is quite simply one of Williamson's most beautiful songs. The visions his words invoke are dark and crystalline, fog-shrouded shapes moving in the woods - the kind of stuff that scares the hell out of kids and grown-ups alike, but which is beautiful at the same time.

The album's longest composition, Mike Heron's 'A very cellular song' follows. It's a tour-de-force, encompassing several styles of music and themes - including a West Indian funeral song. His subject is nothing less than the beauty and interconnected nature of life itself, told from the level of a single cell. This has been singled out by many reviewers as not only the high point of this album, but of the band's career as well -- and to be sure, from this period onward, it remains one of their most adventurous, popular pieces. Heron's 'Mercy I cry city' is next - a simple man's troubled view of the confusion we call 'civilization'. Humor and innocence play large roles in these lyrics, as in several of Mike's songs over the years (check out 'Cousin Caterpillar' on their WEE TAM/THE BIG HUGE).

Another trio of Robin's songs follow. The first of these, 'Waltz of the new moon', incorporates spiritual images from China, India and the Nordic countries of Europe into a swirling tapestry. Dolly Collins' harp and harpsichord arrangements of this song are especially beautiful. This piece flows effortlessly, seamlessly (and appropriately) into the next tune, 'The water song', another of Williamson's most moving pieces, an ode to the beauty, energy and sacredness of water itself. "Three is a green crown' follows, a beautiful but separate companion to his later work 'Creation' (on CHANGING HORSES), with many mystical references to the process by which the earth was formed, and life appeared and progressed. This is a very hopeful song (I believe), encouraging us to learn all we can about the earth and each other - through knowledge and understanding will come peace: '...the book of life is open to us, there'll be no secrets between us'.

Mike Heron's 'Swift as the wind' is next, in which a child's parents scoff at his nightmare visions - but the visions belong to the child, not the parents - and the fear and dread he feels are very real to him. 'Nightfall', a Williamson composition concerning the power of the night and of sleep itself, end the album very fittingly: 'O sleep come to me, you who are night's daughter, and I'll give you my eyes for the colors that rise as time's echoes reflect on your water...O river of sight flow through me, washing thoughts of the day on your waters away...for the morrow that dawns never knew me'.

This double-disc package brings together two if the Incredible String Band's most creative and important recordings. It's nice to have them available together at an affordable price.

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