The Incredible String Band — Self Titled

The Incredible String Bands first self titled album original appeared back in 1966, and it showed a lot more stripped down and acoustic guitar based sound from the often muilt-layered and genre mixing psychedelic folk sound they became know and loved for.

This fine reissue of the album is offered up in digit-pak form which comes with a sixteen page booklet that features the songs lyrics, original liner notes from both the UK & US edition of the album. Plus a two page write-up about the band in general by Robyn Hitchcock, and another two page reminiscence from original and founding member Clive Palmer- who only ever recorded this one album with the band. And lastly there’s write-up about each songs themes/ influences by Mike Heron- so a very through and informative accompany to the album.

When the band recorded this album they where only a three piece and featured: Robin Williamson  on violin, whistle, mandolin, guitar and of course vocals, Clive Palmer on banjo, guitar/ & vocals, and Mike Heron guitar & vocals . As already mentioned the sound of the albums sixteen  songs are  alot more striped-down, minimalistic and less dense then the bands often later muilt-layered works. Yet there’s still that very distinctive sound to the band with the very wordy/often trippy lyrics sang by the mainly distinctive voice of  Mike Heron, with Robin Williamson singing a few tracks & Palmer singing one track fully himself. There are backing vocals here and there too, but really the focus is often just on the mixture of three acoustic gitars, some banjo and the lead vocals. Also a few songs have elements of whistle, violin and mandolin, but even when these appear the guitars and lead vocals are the centre of the sound.

The songs themselves are often quite short compared with the often length and complex songs that the band often brew-up later in their career, with the song length’s hitting  just under a minute to just under the five minute mark. The tone through-out the album is mostly upbeat, mellow and there's often a wonderful ringing urgency to the trios interlocking acoustic guitar sound, and each song is memorable & mainly buoyant.

So  in summing up a  very worthwhile, nicely presented and informative re-issue of the first album by this hugely influential folk band.