Customer Reviews

Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Viewed by many die-hard fans as the jewel in the crown of Stringdom, this is THE Incredible String Band album to demonstrate, above all others, just what makes this unique band so wonderful. From the opening dream-like reflections on childhood "Born in a house where the doors shut tight, shadowy fingers on the curtains at night" to the the exquisite dying fall of "Nightfall", this is strange, exotic, mesmerising and mysterious stuff. Oh, and it just happens to be incredibly beautiful as well, for the most part. Memorable highlights abound: Robin's deceptively simple "Witch's Hat" ("sitting on her head like a parrafin stove"), Mike's lush and fascinating "Cellular Song" (amoebas are very small, aren't they?)...thrill to tales of the Emperor of China with his iron footwear, ponder the meaning of "Three is a Green Crown", or just go with the flow and enjoy. This is truly incredible music. With the String Band currently enjoying a much-deserved renaissance, what better time to get to know this (arguably their finest) album. Then check out Wee Tam & the Big Huge, and 5000 Spirits, for proof that this was no flash in the pan.

This is the third album recorded by the Incredible String Band, recorded in late 1967 and released in early 1968, at the height of the psychedelic movement in popular music. Combining instruments and melodies from the far corners of the earth with lyrics unequalled in their day (and rarely since) reflecting on eveything 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, with memories of adult neighbors and even a group of soldiers who camped nearby. These 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 following song sounds almost like something out of Gilbert & Sullivan (complete with a responsive chorus and much humor), with a jarring difference -- its subject is the minotaur of ancient myth. There's a brutal play on word sounds at the end of one bridge: '...his habits are predictable, agressively reliable, poor bull'. 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 stuff that scares the hell out of kids and grown-ups alike, but 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 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 nightmare visions are scoffed at by his parent -- but the child senses how real they are, 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'.

The mood of this album is a little darker than some of their other effots, but I certainly don't see it as dismal or depressing or doom-laden. Our days on this earth are made up of dark as well as light -- and there is knowledge and power in both. The more we know, the more we open our minds and hearts to the night and its mysteries, the less we need to fear them -- as in the mysteries of life itself.

'Nightfall -- 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 album has haunetd me for 35 years. If your mind is open you will be rejoicing..if its not been opened do not pass this offering.

The music on this album of the late 60's captivates me as much now as it did then - both in its daring, imaginative lyrics and its use of rhythm and melody from innumerable traditions. There is no style that hasn't found expression in these tracks. "Witch's Hat," for example, with its slightly off-pitch hammered dulcimer accompaniment, feels of a Halloween night, rife with mystery. "The Water Song," a medieval prayer, gives its would-be competitor, "Stairway to Heaven," the lie. "Water" shows how to do it right! "The Minotaur's Song" takes on Gilbert and Sullivan with a vengeance, and "Swift As The Wind" paints a bleak portrait of parental neglect. Perhaps the finest song on the album is Williamson's "Waltz of the New Moon." Modal and influenced by Eastern performance technique, this masterpiece in stolid 3/4 time takes the listener on a journey through ancient secrets. Every line is moonlit - every beat resonates with the movement of the earth through the heavens. Simply beautiful! This collection is a must for anyone who truly loves music - and poetry. I'll vote it best "Defies Category" album of all time!

Hangman's Beautiful daughter by Mike Heron & Robin Williamson is capable of putting happiness & sunlight into your deepest inner self. A Very Cellular Song is nothiing short of true MAGIC !!! It conveys the essence of the cycles of life from birth through death & beyond. a fascinating metamorphises which is rarely found in a musical format. since it's release in 1968 this album has never left the sales charts !!!! If you want to own one of the most magically beautiful musical collections of all time, make sure that " Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" is in your collection.

From beginning to end, the collective synergy of this CD between words, music and sounds, provides the listener with the ultimate in escape entertainment. This varied collection of songs from the Incredible String Band, evokes senses that stimulate, unlatching the gate of the imagination. And, the best thing is that it's all NATURAL! The song lyrics abound with characters, from the lowly "amoeba" to the mysterious, "unnameable, Namer." Also, word pictures take you from "riding backwards on a giraffe" to "wearing iron shoes with ease." A Very Cellular Song is wondrous, a celebration of lives; Witches Hat is eerie, with veiled hints of strange ceremonies in ancient woods; Koeeoaddi There is happy, wistful, oddly off center; The Minotaur's Song is proud, boastful, stubborn, forging ahead, not willing to change; Waltz Of The New Moon is continuous, revolving, renewing, eternal...I listen to The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter again and again. It's a prized jewel in my CD collection.

Comparing this via headphones to the Hannibal/Rykodisc CD of yore, I honestly couldn't hear much of a difference. But you do get a 16-page booklet with impressionistic liner notes by Robin Williamson, lyrics, and some rare photographs and concert posters. The music, of course, remains magical; not only one the greatest albums of the '60s but of all time.

`The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' (Daughter) by The Incredible String Band (TISB) is the album which established my affection for their music. I first became aware of the act with a newspaper review of `The 5000 Spirits or The Layers of the Onion' (5000 Spirits) which compared the album favorably to `Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'. See my review of this album for my full assessment of this album, but rest assured I do not agree that this album is in the same league as one of the most important music albums of the 1960's.

`The 5000 Spirits or The Layers of the Onion' and that review was strong enough for me to look out for the TISB's next album (this one) and I was appropriately rewarded when I first heard this work on vinyl about 35 years ago. For starters, it simply hangs together much better than the earlier album. `5000 Spirits' seems to be just a collection of imaginative songs, most of that are probably considered `novelty songs'. `Daughter' is tied together by several parallel themes, the most important of which is linked to the album title and consists of stories admonitions, and entertainment's for an adolescent girl. The second theme running though most of the songs is the classic ancient elements of earth, air, fire, and water.

Many of the songs on `Daughter' still have the novelty flavor about them, but are ennobled by their role as children's entertainment. The centerpiece `entertainment' is the song I committed to memory way back then, `The Minotaur's Song', which is a classic TISB blend of myth and (Gilbert and Sullivan) parody, including references to `the earth', in keeping with the four elements theme. If it were not for the reference to Gilbert and Sullivan and the song based on microbiology (`A Very Cellular Song'), one can almost imaging these songs being written by traveling minstrels out in the hinterlands in a squire's manor house before the advent of either gas or electric light.

In fact, one theme which seems to run through much of the TISB work is the notion of homemade entertainment, based on the beatnik / hippie culture of 1960s.

The Incredible String Band does much that is very good in later albums, but this is the one I always think of first when I come back to listening to them about once every year. This is the album that captures their style, subjects, and themes much better than the highly praised earlier album.

If you are roaming around recordings of obscure 1960's Scottish performers, this is the album to try if you have an interest in The Incredible String Band!

Of all the ISB albums this is probably the one which most stringheads bliss out on...even more than "5,000 Spirits" it established Robin and Mike as purveyors of prime stoned hippy wisdom and musicians of apparently limitless talent. Unlike much contemporary material it still sounds great today - just check out Mike's "Very Cellular Song" and Robin's "Witch's Hat" for an illustration of what made the String Band so special.

Although this is not my very favorite ISB album, Hermester Barrington has described in his review of this CD, and in a delightfully creative way, the music contained in the entire Incredible String Band catalog. This may indeed be one of the best in an unbroken string of fabulous works, but I believe that each Incredible String Band lover's sentimental favorite is whichever album they heard first (my first exposure was to WEE TAM & THE BIG HUGE; it remains an all-time favorite, rivaled only by the band's later, very different album, LIQUID ACROBAT AS REGARDS THE AIR). Reading the other reviews of THE HANGMAN'S BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER, I can only nod my head in agreement with most of what has been said. This album IS one of the definitive ones, but I should add that it is but one stop on a long, artistically successful journey that includes virtually no aberrations, and which is rich with unexpected twists and turns on and off an unpaved path. No other group of artists has been more independent of trends, fads or commercial considerations. Although the group might be lumped in with Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention and Pentangle, if it must be categorized, it is really almost an entire genre unto itself, with the aforementioned groups, as great as they are, much more conventional in both material and musical approach. Even when ISB made later forays into rock, pop and country, they did so, it seems, only to expand their palette of colors, growing and developing according to their own peculiar and beautiful vision. HARD ROPE & SILKEN TWINE, in my opinion, is at least as good as their self-titled debut recording (I actually like the later one much better; and come to think of it, the first record may be their weakest) and we are talking several years separating the two. I would not necessarily recommend HANGMAN as a place to start for beginners, as it is one of ISB's most musically and lyrically challenging efforts, but I could easily be wrong, as other reviewers fell in love with the band because they first heard this record...