The Incredible String Band — Changing Horses
The album was recorded in the summer of 1969 and released in the November of the same year. For the album, the band's line-up was Robin Williamson, Mike Heron, Licorice McKechnie, and Rose Simpson. The album takes in just six tracks- with two epic 14/16 minute tracks, and it’s fair to say this is one of the lesser & more uneven ISB albums- suffering from both lack of focus, overstretched ideas, and highly mixed songwriting quality.
The album opens in very good form- with "Big Ted", a nicely playful number written by Williamson about a pig. The track brings together foot tapping ratter-tat percussion, urgent yet buoyant acoustic guitar strum, with twanging blues bound electric guitar & harmonica interplay. And to top it off we great jiving ragtime like the piano-led chorus. It’s clear the band having a lot of fun, and it doesn’t fail to put a smile on ones face.
Sadly after the great start, we go downhill with “White Feather”- a frankly wondering & uneventful Heron track.To begin with, it’s built around ornate -though -awkward acoustic guitar & flute interplay. Later on, we move into plodding folk-rock territory, before once more returning to more stripped back acoustic guitar strum 'n' wonder, with some truly painful & wavering vocals. And worse of all the whole thing goes on for nearing fifteen minutes- it totally lacks the flair, clever composition, and wordy play of the bands great epic songs, and truly by the end of it you’ll be fed up to the back teeth with the words ‘White Feather’….as it’s repeated so many times.
Track three comes in the form of “Dust Be Diamonds” which is both joyfully quirky & at times awkward. It brings together rapid wow-wow led strumming, vibe runs, and jarring horn work. With a sing-song at times grating(depending on one's mood) chorus which finds wavering female backing Lala's and the repeated male/female chant of the words ‘Dusty Diamonds water be wine happy. happy all the time’. It certainly an improvement on the previous track, and I do like the almost jester/ da da vibe- though it’s far from a classic ISB song.
“Sleepers, Awake” is just under four minutes of capella hippy sing-song, meets nature-themed hymn. With the male & female voices of the band working well together to create both a feeling of earthy mystery & joy- it’s one of the more magical & spine-tingling moments on the album. After this we have we have “Mr. & Mrs”, and frankly this is mostly a rather bland slice of folk rock with simmering church organ backing- in it’s last few minutes it turns rock gospel, to not really very rewarding results.
Finally, we have "Creation"- which is the other epic track here. It’s a Williamson penned number, and while it’s better than "White Bird", it’s still not great- rather lacking both interesting development & a compelling atmosphere, and to be honest, at times it becomes very droning & repetitive. It starts out with a rather loose blend of eastern tinged wailing/ chanting & wondering twangs. Within a minute we get a more focused blend eastern twang & eastern percussion, on/off pipe organ press, more joint chanting & topped off with Williamson cryptic & cosmic ramblings. By around the fifth minute, we’ve moved to a more western harmonic path with the still fairly fixed & droning musical path, based around the chanting, guitar strum & eastern twangs. Later on, we get shifts into kazoo led Dixieland jazz & boogie-woogie piano works-out, but it just all feels very much of a miss-mash in both it’s structure & flow- really feeling a few low-grade ISB songs stuck together.
As we’ve come to expect from BGO reissues you get a nice glossy booklet- this comes in at twenty pages, taking in, of course, lyrics & album artwork. You also get a new write-up about the album & that time in the band's career too. Also, we get a color card slip sleeve for the jewel case too- so it’s another well-presented reissue.
Sadly the album's material its self is very, very mixed- so in conclusion if your either brought the reissues in this series, or are a long-term fan of the band you’ll need this. Otherwise if your new to the band you're far better checking out their more consistent & masterful records like The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, Wee Tam & The Big Huge, Or U which have all been given the BGO reissue treatment.