Isb

In the liner notes to these carefully packaged reissues, all four of the Incredible String Band principals– co-founder Clive Palmer, core duo Mike Heron and Robin Williamson, and Elektra records executive Joe Boyd– offer their insights in separate essays. Three of them mention the smell of patchouli. Such were the times, certainly, but the ISB are loved equally by avant-garde musicians, psychedelia enthusiasts, and those slightly dweeby young gentlemen who hang around music shops on college campuses. The reissue of their first four albums probably put to rest any notion that the ISB were a properly great band, releasing just one true classic, but they were rarely anything less than brave, inspired, and profoundly weird.

The Incredible String Band was nothing more than a cult act in the U.S., so it may come as a surprise to American listeners that the ISB actually spawned imitators on their home turf. Forest was the most faithful of these, releasing a couple albums of medieval-hippie minstrelsy in 1969-1970. Each member of the trio (Martin Welham, Derek Allenby, and Hadrian Welham) was a multi-instrumentalist, playing not just the expected guitars, but harmonium, harpsichord, pipes, whistle, organ, and mandolin…

Gram Parsons' legend is so great that it's easy for the neophyte to be skeptical about his music, wondering if it really is deserving of such effusive praise. Simply put, it is, and if you question the veracity of that statement, turn to Rhino's peerless double-disc set, Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels: The Gram Parsons Anthology. This is the first truly comprehensive overview of Parsons' work, running from the International Submarine Band, through the Byrds, to the Flying Burrito Brothers and his two solo albums, scattering appropriate rarities or non-LP tracks along the way…