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

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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.

Opener Chinese White is a sparse, slow song, just Heron on guitar and Williamson on a bowed gimbri (a 3 stringed Arabic lute - I had to look it up, too), some very folky harmonies, and it just kind of works. No Sleep Blues is more orthodox, but none the worse for that, and another favourite with layers of parody, whimsy and possibly seriousness all together. Painting Box seems to contain no whimsy, and is exactly the sort of campfire folk you'd expect, but it's quie a nice listen, while The Mad Hatter's Song has an eastern feel (there's a sitar in there), and a sense of rambling without going anywhere. Little Cloud quotes from Winne The Pooh, before a forgettable little number, as is the turgid The Eyes Of Fate.

Blues For The Muse is an upbeat, more listenable song, but it's only a prelude to my absolute favourite on the album, The Hedgehog Song. Don't look for this on the internet unless you want to be directed to a drinking song from Terry Pratchitt's Discworld about how difficult it is to bugger a hedgehog. It's a song I feel I've known since childhood and it still raises a smile. How many of us "know all the words and have sung all the note but never quite learned the song"? It's followed by the equally lovely First Girl I Loved, nothing radical, just a wistful look back at first love.

You Know What You Could Be is cheery and forgettable, while My Name Is Death is anything but, a haunting monotone start leading to a dark song. We're on the home straight now, and Gently Tender rambles on fairly aimlessly before the final song Back In The 1960s, in which Heron and Williamson imagine themselves today. Thankfully, their reminiscences of doom haven't come to pass, but it's a likeable ending.

I like this album. It has all the folky clichés, without taking itself too seriously. I'd certainly recommend it as a starting point for the Incredible String Band.

Link to full album

4* - Certainly my favourite album from the band. So many great songs.