In 1967, the band consisted only of singer-songwriters Robin Williamson and Mike Heron. But by the time of this album, Licorice McKechnie and Rose Simpson joined as well, as you can see from the cover image. They released the albums "Changing Horses" in 1969 and "Looking Up" in 1970.
In 2007, the archival album "Across the Airwaves: BBC Radio Recordings 1969-74" was released. Seven of the songs here come from that, while the rest remain unreleased. Those seven are the first four, plus tracks 9 through 11. It's obvious that that album wasn't meant to be complete, even with sound quality considerations, because the unreleased tracks 12 and 13 are from the exact same BBC session as three that were chosen.
A bunch of the songs on this album had the lead vocals low in the mix. I fixed that for all the songs except the first four, which sounded fine. As usual, I used the UVR5 audio editing program to do that.
This album is an hour and four minutes long.
01 Fine Fingered Hands (Incredible String Band)
02 All Writ Down (Incredible String Band)
03 Dust Be Diamonds (Incredible String Band)
04 Theta (Incredible String Band)
05 The Letter (Incredible String Band)
06 This Moment (Incredible String Band)
07 Gather Round (Incredible String Band)
08 Waiting for You (Incredible String Band)
09 Empty Pocket Blues (Incredible String Band)
10 Beautiful Stranger (Incredible String Band)
11 Won't You Come See Me (Incredible String Band)
12 Flowers of the Forest (Incredible String Band)
13 Dark Eyed Lady (Incredible String Band)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/PEVAtdFC
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/SHImL7mI3Tgkrfn/file
All I know about the cover photo is that it's from 1970.
Thanks Paul. I've loved the ISB since seeing this foursome in a wonderful performance in New York, probably around 1970. They sure were different -- in a good way.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteAccording to Rose Simpson's book Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden, the cover photo was used for the Hux Records 2009 ISB rarities collection Tricks of the Senses. Although it's quite obviously from when the four of them were all together (as opposed to the anywhere during the 2000s), I'll go with your 1970 date. Wonderful picture!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for posting all 7 (!) of your volumes of ISB radio sessions. They were band I would have loved had I heard them in my teenage years (and indeed I was fascinated by their album covers and the few interviews I read with them), I simply couldn't afford to buy records by all the fantastic-looking 70s UK bands at the time --- my parental financial allowance was only enough for only two albums a month (and only one if i was on import-only, which fairly common with the music I followed then.) So I finally heard The String Band much later as a late-middle-aged fan. I have to say that, despite endless controversies amongst the band's True Devotees, I enjoy just about every period of their work, however 'flawed' their studio LPs could be. The BBC sessions contain endless delights, adding much more to the ISB story than such broadcasts do with more 'disciplined' ensembles. Many thanks for pulling these recordings together and sharing them!
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