Tuesday, 14 February 2017

Incredible String Band - Hard Rope and Silken Twine [1974], album review



Less Assured in the Leaving

The final album before the band split, [reforming briefly 5 years later] this opens with a Mike Heron song Maker of Islands which is orchestral and gorgeous, followed by a live Robin Williamson song Cold February with sweet flute/recorder, organ and Robin’s unique vocal. Two gems. Then there’s Dumb Kate, a hillbilly pastiche, though perhaps not as intentionally ironic as one would want as an excuse. Fuel for those critics [read previous on Earthspan]. So the other main interest apart from the two openers is closer Ithkos at 20 minutes of initially Greek-sounding instrumental that becomes electric and folkprog and marginally heavy at one point and then into familiar acid folk but with some more heaviness, this time an amped violin, but continuing to chop and change across these signaled movements:

Sardis (Oud Tune)

Lesbos-Dawn

Lesbos-Evening

Aegean Sea

Dreams Fade

Port Of Sybaris

Go Down Sybaris

Huntress

Hold My Gaze


It is an experiment not all that experimental in reality and perhaps signaled the ending of the band in an elegiac way as, midway in, Dreams Fade sweeps through peacefully and prettily, though it moves out of this again swiftly into the riff rich Port of Sybaris, and so on.

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