The Incredible String Band – The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion (1967)

This certainly wasn't my first Incredible String Band Album - that was The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter - but it's certainly one that I feel goes back eons in my memory. And there's so much that's familiar, it's feeling like an old mate. Not the sort you introduce your other mates to, of course, but that mate you've inexplicably stayed in contact with for decades, despite never being that close.

Incredible String Band were so 1960s folk hippie that it's tempting to think of them as a parody, but I suspect they were deadly serious in all they did. Even with the vivid coloured album sleeve, the rag-tag forest dwelling clothing and Licorice playing finger cymbals, they meant it. And they didn't seem to give a toss what all the other cooler bands thought of them, which shows in the charming naivety of lot of the music. Combine that with Mike Heron and Robin Williamson actually being damn fine songwriters, and it's really rather good.