Earthspan [Import]

Incredible String Band | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 16, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Edsel Records UK
• ASIN: B0000011TS
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #577,585 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. My Father Was a Lighthouse Keeper

2. Antoine

3. Restless Night

4. Sunday Song

5. Black Jack Davey

6. Banks of Sweet Italy

7. The Actor

8. Moon Hang Low

9. Sailor and the Dancer

10. Seagull

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Bye bye Licorice, July 23, 2001

By 

Tom (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Earthspan (Audio CD)

Another odd album from the twilight years of the Incredibles, this was the last to feature Licorice McKechnie and her departure really signalled the final nail in the coffin of the ISB we knew and loved. She actually contributes quite a lot to the album providing the (rather odd) lyrics to "Sunday Song" and the stratospherically high lead vocals to "Banks of Sweet Italy". That prancing dancer Malcolm Le Maistre also makes his presence felt, contributing three songs, the spritely and catchy "My Father Was a Lighthouse Keeper", the rather limp-wristed and louche "The Actor" and the quite stirring "Sailor and the Dancer". Whether, his plummy vocals brought very much to the ISB is rather more debatable. As for Heron and Williamson, they seem oddly subdued. Williamson contributes two diffuse jazzy ballads and the aforementioned "Banks of Sweet Italy", a brief and delightful return to more folky waters rendered difficult to listen to by Likky's fingenails-down-a-blackboard vocals. From Mike Heron we have the tortured one-man-and-his-church-organ "Antoine", which reads like a film script but errs on the side of melodrama. "Black Jack Davy" from "I Looked Up" is revisited and revitalised as "Black Jack David". [....] Finally, there is "Sunday Song", something of an epic (though not by ISB standards), this features a three-pronged vocal attack of Likky, Mike and Malcolm and an often very inventive string arrangement from Mike. Somewhat overblown in places and about as far from the original ISB as is humanly possible but still an interesting track (rather poorly produced tho, black marks there Mike). The closing string coda happens to be one of the most stirring moments in the ISB canon, IMO!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece, July 14, 2004

By 

eidolon (The Sunny South) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Earthspan (Audio CD)

I listened to this record a lot when I was 16. I'm 48 now, and I listened to the cd of this today while driving through near-tornado weather conditions. It's such a beautiful record from start to finish. A later piece by the ISB, yes, but it's just about perfect. Wee Tam, The Big Huge, and The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter are among the very top of the top of 60's pop music. This lp shows them moving away from "folk" music, with influences of 20's jazz a little, and so on. But this music is performed by extremely skilled musicians, on the order of the best you've ever heard. The Incredible String Band's music is truly and deeply wise in a way that very few young musicians ever achieved (they were in their 20's when these records were made). "Cosmic" was such a cheap designation, or became such, but this music, so skillfully arranged and played, is just mind-boggling, still to me at this age. You can't go wrong with this one, as far as I'm concerned. It'll touch you deep down inside, and the level of musicianship is incomparable. Like many very good records, this one irritated me a lot when I first heard it, but it's safe to say it's one of the best pop lps I ever learned to love. The ISB deserve to be far more well known than they are.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Incredibles...., March 3, 2000

By 

S. GODFREY "Stuart" (Risca, South Wales) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Earthspan (Audio CD)

This album found the Incredibles in one of their many transitional phases...not yet the full-blooded rock band of "Hard Rope", no longer the whymsical hippy minstrels of "Hangman's"...this was a band with an identity crisis. They gamely tried out different musical styles, Robin's jazzy excursions here are only partly successful, Mike's "Antoine" is powerful but essentially melodramatic, Likky's "Sunday Song" is strangley affecting but does takes some getting into. Malcolm's "Sailor and the Dancer" is one of the more enjoyable tracks in an eclectic collection. Still great because its the Incredibles, but not essential like "Hangman's"