The Incredible String Band

The Incredible String Band (or ISB) are a Scottish acoustic band who, (in the words of one of their early songs) "way back in the 1960s" built a popular following among the British counter culture, and who are considered p

The Incredible String Band (or ISB) are a Scottish acoustic band who, (in the words of one of their early songs) "way back in the 1960s" built a popular following among the British counter culture, and who are considered psych folk music pioneers.

The Incredible String Band was formed in 1965 by Scottish folk musicians Robin Williamson, Mike Heron and Clive Palmer. They recorded their eponymous debut album in 1966, a lighthearted affair which revealed only the merest hint of the psychedelic adventures to come. After that, the band broke up. Palmer decamped for the Trail to Afghanistan and Williamson visited Morocco from where he returned laden with exotic instruments like the famous gimbri, which was, much later, eaten by rats. In 1967 Heron and Williamson recorded The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion, an audaciously eclectic mix of bookish folk music, hippy love songs and Eastern modalities. They soon became the-name-to-drop-in-interviews for luminaries such as Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan. In their annum mirabilis of 1968 they practically defined the hippy counterculture in the extraordinary albums The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter and Wee Tam and the Big Huge. By then the group consisted of Williamson, Heron, Rose Simpson and Licorice McKechnie. They played at Woodstock in 1969 at the wrong time, having refused to play in the pouring rain the previous day (seen by manager Joe Boyd as a great missed opportunity). In 1970 Robin Williamson attempted to fuse the music with his theatrical fantasies in a quixotic multi-media spectacular at London's Roundhouse called U. It was "a surreal parable in dance and song" and highlighted the fact that they were never destined to make much money out of things. After that they lasted another 4 years. By 1974 tension between Williamson and Heron, who was pushing the band into prog-rock territory, had become unbearable and they split up.