The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter is one of the most unimpeachably outside discs ever waxed by a pair of hallucinating hippies. The roots of The Incredible String Band lie deep in the corners of the Scottish folk scene, with Robin Williamson and Clive Palmer touting transported bluegrass around the late-night boozers of the central belt. With the addition of guitarist Mike Heron the trio cut some fairly unremarkable folk standards - alongside a couple of beautifully puzzling originals that so stirred maverick record producer Joe Boyd that he signed them to the newly-inked British wing of Elektra.

Their first, self-titled, album came out in 1966, featuring spidery re-workings of traditional material, but after it failed to do much damage the trio split and followed the hash clouds to Morocco and Afghanistan. By the time they reformed they'd lost Palmer but had glimpsed the other side and began trying to map their rewired synapses via some fantastically dislocated song forms, an approach which reached its acme with 1968's The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter.

From the alluring half-light of the cover shot, via serpentine, episodic song-structures, ethnic drones and song-poems that spoke of Ur-pagan conceits and mythic archetypes, they created a truly timeless slab of mutant folk that transports you off to a never-never land that's full of whimsy and vague melancholy. Indeed it feels like it was dictated, like the duo opened themselves to the skies and just let it come down.

For their first album, Caravan was surprisingly strong. While steeped in the same British psychedelia that informed bands such as Love Children, Pink Floyd, and Tomorrow, Caravan relates a freedom of spirit and mischief along the lines of Giles, Giles & Fripp or Gong. The band's roots can be traced to a British blue-eyed soul combo called the Wilde Flowers. Among the luminaries to have passed through this Caravan precursor were Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, and Hugh Hopper and Brian Hopper (pre-Soft Machine, naturally). By the spring of 1968, Caravan had settled nicely into a quartet consisting of Pye Hastings (guitar/bass/vocals), Richard Coughlan (drums), David Sinclair (organ/vocals), and Richard Sinclair (bass/guitar/vocals). Inspired by the notoriety and acclaim that Soft Machine encountered during the burgeoning days of London's underground scene, Caravan began a residency at the Middle Earth club. Additionally, the band was shopping a homemade demo tape around to local record companies. Before long, entrepreneur Tony Cox worked out a deal for them to record on the newly founded U.K. division of the Verve label. Caravan's self-titled debut is equally as inventive and infinitely more subtle than the Soft Machine's Volume One or Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Two of the album's best tunes — the ethereal "Place of My Own" was backed with the dreamlike "Magic Man" — were issued as the band's first single. Those tracks accurately exemplify the subtle complexities that Caravan would hone to great effect on later recordings. The same can also be said for album cuts such as "Love Song With Flute" and the extended nine-minute "Where but for Caravan Would I?" The latter title aptly exemplifies Caravan's decidedly less than turgid attitude toward themselves — a refreshing contrast from the temperamental and serious Art School approach adopted by Pink Floyd and the Moody Blues. The mono and stereo mixes of the long-player are striking in their disparities. The stereo mix is at times opaque and virtually swallows the vocals most specifically on the tracks "Policeman" and "Grandma's Lawn." Otherwise, there are numerous additional nuances that discern the two. The single version of "Hello Hello" is also included as a bonus. This track was the follow-up 45 to "Place of My Own" and would appear in a slightly different form on their next LP, If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You. Potential consumers should note that the sound quality on this package is indescribably better than the HTD Records 1996 CD pressing.

(by Lindsay Planer, All Music Guide)

This album was originally issued in the Incredible String Band's native England as the first in a two-LP collection with a companion disc entitled The Big Huge. However, stateside distributor Elektra Records decided to present them as two separate works. This version of the ISB includes founding members Robin Williamson (organ, bass, flute, guitar, percussion, piano, violin, drums, harpsichord, kazoo, whistle, sarangui, gimbri, and Irish harp) and Mike Heron (organ, bass, guitar, harmonica, harpsichord, sitar, and washboard) as well as their significant others, Christina "Liquorice" McKechnie (vocals, percussion, and Irish harp) and Rose Simpson (violin, bass, and vocals). At this point — mid-1968 — the quartet was continuing to experiment with a blend of folk music(s) from both sides of the Atlantic. They were also adding elements of psychedelia throughout. However, rather than the typical electric guitars and oftentimes nonsensical lyrics, the ISB were decidedly more insular. The double lead vocals on "Job's Tears" as well as the delicate minor-chord cacophonies and random woodwinds during "Beyond the Sea" are infinitely more subtle yet no less trippy than most anything the band had tried previously. "The Half-Remarkable Question" is a musical enigma, replete with a bouncy sitar-driven melody. This inevitably reminds the listener of the genuine breadth and scope of both Heron and Williamson's multi-instrumental talents and seeming mastery of all things stringed. There are also a few ISB classics included on Wee Tam — such as the acoustic Appalachian sound of Heron's "Log Cabin in the Sky" as well as the innocuous love song "You Get Brighter," both of which remained at the heart of the ISB canon for decades to come. Unlike the excessive and scattered material that would accompany the quartet's interests [read: obsession] in Scientology during the ensuing years, Wee Tam and The Big Huge are charming and among the most representative discs from this incarnation of the ISB.

(by Lindsay Planer, All Music Guide)

Although issued as a separate release in the U.S., The Big Huge is actually the second-disc counterpart of Wee Tam. The set appeared as a two-LP package throughout the rest of the world. Understandably, the albums are very similar in structure and content. This quartet incarnation of the Incredible String Band featured primary songwriters Robin Williamson and Mike Heron as well as their significant others, Christina "Liquorice" McKechnie and Rose Simpson. The ISB's tradition of quirky, and at times atonal, acoustic material is well served by the nine compositions on this platter. The lengthy opening track, "Maya," foreshadows their less-focused upcoming works I Looked Up and U. Although there are a few moments of brilliant playing, the ambling nature of the song overall makes for difficult consumption during a single sitting. The remainder of the record — while similar in unfettered spirit — contains decidedly more cohesive pieces, a few of which are among the ISB's most lauded compositions. These include the pastoral "Greatest Friend" and a dirge-like "The Circle Is Unbroken." "Lordly Nightshade" contains a few 20th century references — such as Hitler, who is likewise mentioned in "Maya." The minstrel storytelling quality adds an ethereal sense to the darkly toned subject matter. The vocal harmonies throughout The Big Huge are among the quartet's finest — most notably the four-part division on "The Mountain of God" and the deceptively simple and silly "Cousin Caterpillar." After several years out of print, Collectors' Choice Music reissued both Wee Tam and The Big Huge as a double-CD set — including the original LP graphics and lyrics.

(by Lindsay Planer, All Music Guide)

Most definitely a part of the late-'60s West Coast psychedelic blues revolution that was becoming hipper than hip, Steve Miller was also always acutely aware of both the British psychedelic movement that was swirling in tandem and of where the future lay, and how that would evolve into something even more remarkable. The result of all those ideas, of course, came together on 1968's magnificent Sailor LP. Speaking to Goldmine magazine in 2002, Miller reiterated that he was always aware of forward thinking: "It's amazing what the breakthroughs are, and the quality is absolutely better and you don't have the digital/analog argument anymore about what sounds the best. It's all new. And now anybody in the world can do what I wanted to do so badly when I got my deal with Capitol Records and got to finally go into a recording studio." What was begun on Children of the Future is more fully realized on Sailor, most notably on the opening "Song for Our Ancestors," which begins with a foghorn and only gets stranger from there. Indeed, the song precognizes Pink Floyd's 1971 opus "Echoes" to such an extent that one wonders how much the latter enjoyed Miller's own wild ride. Elsewhere, the beautiful, slow "Dear Mary" positively shimmers in a haze of declared love, while the heavy drumbeats and rock riffing guitar of "Living in the U.S.A." are a powerful reminder that the Steve Miller Band, no matter what other paths they meandered down, could rock out with the best of them. And, of course, this is the LP that introduced many to the Johnny "Guitar" Watson classic "Gangster of Love," a song that would become almost wholly Miller's own, giving the fans an alter ego to caress long before "The Joker" arose to show his hand. Rounding out Miller's love of the blues is an excellent rendering of Jimmy Reed's "You're So Fine." At their blues-loving best, Sailor is a classic Miller recording and a must-have -- especially for the more contemporary fan, where it becomes an initiation into a past of mythic proportion

(by Amy Hanson, All Music Guide)

»Astral Weeks« ist das zweite Soloalbum des nordirischen Musikers Van Morrison, mit dem der ehemalige Them-Sänger nach der Auflösung der Band seine Solokarriere weiter ausprägte.

Aufgenommen wurde die acht Songs umfassende Platte innerhalb von nur zwei Tagen im September und Oktober 1968 in den Century Sound Studios in New York. Unterstützung erhielt Van Morrison dabei von dem Gitarristen Jay Berliner, dem Bassisten Richard Davis, dem Perkussionisten Warren Smith und dem Schlagzeuger Connie Kay. Es ist das erste Album, das der Sänger beim Label Warner Brothers produzierte.

»Astral Weeks« ist eine Mischung aus Folk, Blues und Jazz. Es gehört nicht zu den erfolgreichsten Van-Morrison-Alben, hat jedoch bis heute bei seinen Fans Kultstatus erlangt.

2015 erscheint nun eine Neuauflage des Albums, für die alle acht Songs komplett neu gemastert wurden. Die Expanded Version der Platte enthält zudem vier weitere, bisher nie veröffentlichte Tracks. Dazu gehören eine lange Version von »Ballarina«, eine vibraphonlastige Variante von »Madame George«, die ungekürzte Version von »Slim Slow Slider« sowie der erste Take von »Beside You«.

Mit »Astral Weeks« erscheint ein echter Leckerbissen für Van-Morrison-Fans. Ein Kultalbum in neuer Tonqualität, mit bisher nie gehörten Aufnahmen des legendären Musikers in der Expanded Edition.

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»Nun erscheint das Meisterwerk in einem neuen Remaster in kristallklarem Sound. Als Bonus gibt es vier bislang unveröffentlichte Takes, darunter die längere, ungeschnittene Version von “Slim Slow Slider” sowie einen Mix von “Madame George” ohne Streicher.«

(Good Times, Dezember 2015 / Januar 2016)

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"Astral Weeks was one of Van Morrison's first solo albums after he quit Them and it still stands as a great anomaly in his back catalogue. It's a staggering work, filled with a great, compassionate sorrow for the world that's cut with an ecstatic mysticism. His lyrics are visionary and deeply sensual, garbled passages of word-sounds that convey more via their movement and phrasing than any straight reading ever could. His band are phenomenal, although rumours still persist that - due to the fact that Morrison couldn't be in the same room with any of them - they all overdubbed their parts later, the core of the songs being Morrison's solo guitar and vocal track. Either way, the arrangements are glorious. There's a lightness of touch and a melodic freedom that's fairly jazzy, especially in guitarist Jay Berliner's quicksilver leads, an echo of his work with Mingus on The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady. The vibes, flute and soprano saxophone give the tracks an organic quality as they expand and contract like breath. The title track is a hallucinatory regression, via aerial views of heavy industry, visitations from dead bluesmen and resurrection through love, with Richard Davis' acoustic bass plotting little yelps of joy throughout. Still, Sweet Thing is the stand-out, with Morrison surrendered to love and vowing never to grow so old again. He was 23."

"This is music of such enigmatic beauty that, thirty-five years after its release, Astral Weeks still defies easy, admiring description. There was no precedent for it in Van Morrison's previous vocal and songwriting success: the bright, rolling pop of his 1967 Top Ten hit, "Brown Eyed Girl"; his earlier spell as the leader of Irish R&B punks Them and writer of the garage-rock standard "Gloria." And Morrison -- a notoriously private man for whom singing and songwriting have long been a form of emotional armor as well as release -- never 0sounded as warm and ecstatic, more sensual and vulnerable, as he did on Astral Weeks. It was, in part, the sound of sweet relief. Morrison was newly signed to artist-friendly Warner Bros., after a rough ride with his previous U.S. label, Bang, when he made Astral Weeks in the summer of 1968. This was to be his first full-fledged solo album, and he used the opportunity to explore the physical and dramatic range of his voice in his extended poetic-scat singing in "Beside You" and "Ballerina." Morrison also turned his back on straight pop-song structure, setting these hallucinatory reveries on his native Belfast (the daydream memoir "Cypress Avenue," the hypnotic portrait of "Madame George") to wandering melodies connecting the earthy poetry in Celtic folk and American R&B. The crowning touch was the superior jazz quintet -- including acoustic bassist Richard Davis and drummer Connie Kay of the Modern Jazz Quartet -- created by producer Lewis Merenstein to color the mists and shadows. Years later, Davis claimed that the album's basic tracks were all done in one three-hour session, and that Morrison never told the musicians what he wanted from them, or what the lyrics meant. Maybe he didn't know how. Astral Weeks is Morrison going deep inside himself, to the far corners of his life and art, without a net or fear. He was never this open, and naked, again.

Total album sales: 500,000"

(Rolling Stone)

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Astral Weeks is generally considered one of the best albums in pop music history. For all that renown, Astral Weeks is anything but an archetypal rock & roll album: in fact, it isn't a rock & roll album at all. Employing a mixture of folk, blues, jazz, and classical music, Van Morrison spins out a series of extended ruminations on his Belfast upbringing, including the remarkable character "Madame George" and the climactic epiphany experienced on "Cyprus Avenue." Accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, Morrison sings in his elastic, bluesy voice, accompanied by a jazz rhythm section (Jay Berliner, guitar, Richard Davis, bass, Connie Kay, drums), plus reeds (John Payne) and vibes (Warren Smith, Jr.), with a string quartet overdubbed. An emotional outpouring cast in delicate musical structures, Astral Weeks has a unique musical power. Unlike any record before or since, it nevertheless encompasses the passion and tenderness that have always mixed in the best postwar popular music, easily justifying the critics' raves.

(by William Ruhlmann , All Music Guide)

Both David Grisman and singer-guitarist Peter Rowan had served serious apprenticeships with real, hardcore bluegrass bands in the 1960s. With Rowan fresh from Bill Monroe's band, and Grisman an old stalwart with the Greenbriar Boys and Red Allen's band, the two embarked on an audacious acid rock-hick twang fusion. Earth Opera was a band that was very much a product of its time, and the results were a bit murky... I have to confess, I heard these albums many, many years ago and have never gone back to revisit them. I've always had the impression that the band was actually more Rowan's baby that Grisman's, especially since the the muddled feel of these discs seems so similar to the later pop-rock efforts of the Rowan Brothers in the early '70s. Hardcore fans who are able to track these discs down may find them rewarding, but most likely these albums will merely sound like well-intentioned curiousities...

The stylistic explorations pursued by the Beatles in 1966-1967, and the commercial success the group continued to enjoy, inspired other popular musicians to be similarly ambitious and persuaded record companies to take chances on more daring music. Earth Opera is a good example. The Boston-based group's self-titled debut LP featured a heady mixture of pop, rock, folk, jazz, and classical elements in involved arrangements played on such unusual instruments as mandocello and harpsichord. Less a rock band than a highly eclectic chamber orchestra, Earth Opera played in an arty style that suited singer/songwriter/guitarist Peter Rowan's songs, with their complicated structures and highly poetic lyrics. Rowan sang those lyrics, which dealt here and there with anti-war and more generalized sentiments of social dissatisfaction, in a distanced, somewhat artificial tone of voice, using an accent that sounded vaguely British, even when he was mentioning the Red Sox. But he was rarely so specific, more often concerning himself with "the stage inside my mind" or "the picket fenceposts of your mind," internal landscapes in which wordplay and allusions substituted for specific meaning. It was a psychedelic language matched by the music, which hurried and slowed, making room for sudden solos and unexpected juxtapositions of instruments. The result ultimately may have been too ornate and inaccessible for a pop recording, even in 1968, but Earth Opera was very much of its time.

(by William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide)

Im Internet werden für guterhaltene Vinyls der LP Folk Mond & Flower Dream stattliche Summen geboten. Und Jazz-Sammler fragen seit Jahrzehnten, warum es denn keine CD-Version dieser 1967 aufgenommenen Platte des Albert Mangelsdorff Quintetts gibt. Dabei ist sie ist eine der wichtigsten Platten der deutschen Jazzgeschichte. Das damals popu-lärste deutsche Jazzensemble hatte sie auf dem Höhepunkt einer Epoche aufgenommen, in der aus der Nachkriegsszenerie besonders in Frankfurt am Main eigene stilistische Entwicklungen und großartige Solisten hervorgegangen waren, die damals auch erstmals das Interesse der Welt und besonders der Amerikaner am deutschen Jazz geweckt hat-ten. Die Öffnung zu freien Jazzformen (Free Jazz) folgte unmittelbar im Anschluss an die LP Folk Mond & Flower Dream, die das damals führende deutsche Jazzensemble auf seinem Zenit präsentiert.
Was war geschehen? Warum gab es diese LP weder als Vinyl noch als CD länger als 25 Jahre nicht auf dem Markt?

Horst Lippmann hatte das Album für sein Label L+R Records produziert, und es kam 1968 über die Firma CBS in Frankfurt in die Läden. Um 1986 hatte Horst Lippmann dann seinen L+R-Katalog mit einer großer Zahl von Jazz-, Blues- und Weltmusik-Alben an die Frankfurter Firma Bellaphon verkauft. Zu dieser Zeit eroberte die CompactDisc in rasan-tem Tempo den Markt und verdrängte die Vinyl-LP. Von den drei Albert Mangelsdorff Quintett-Klassikern erschienen als CD und Vinyl-Ersatz nur One Tension und Now Jazz Ramwong. Die andere LP Folk Mond & Flower Dream wurde offenbar unter der Position ‚The Lost Tapes’ abgeschrieben.

Noch zu Lebzeiten hat Albert Mangelsdorff immer wieder nach dieser Platte gefragt. Unter den vielen von ihm aufgenommenen und nie als CD neu herausgekommenen Alben war ihm dies das wichtigste. Nun kommt sie an seinem 79. Geburtstag auf den Markt zurück.

This release has long been considered Thelonious Monk's acknowledgement to the flourishing youth-oriented subculture from whence the collection takes its name. Certainly the Grammy-winning cover art -- which depicts Monk as a World War II French revolutionary toting an automatic weapon -- gave the establishment more than the brilliant swinging sounds in the grooves to consider. Underground became Monk's penultimate studio album, as well as the final release to feature the '60s quartet: Charlie Rouse (tenor sax), Ben Riley (drums), and Larry Gales (bass) behind Monk (piano). One of the motifs running throughout Monk's recording career is the revisitation of titles from his voluminous back catalog. The tradition continues with the autobiographical leadoff track, "Thelonious." The instantly recognizable stride piano lines are delivered with the same urgency and precision that they possessed over two decades earlier when he first recorded the track for Blue Note. The presence of Charlie Rouse throughout the album is certainly worth noting. "Ugly Beauty" best captures the sacred space and musical rapport that he and Monk shared. Each musician functions as an extension of the other, creating solos that weave synchronically as if performed by the same pair of hands. Newer material, such as the playful "Green Chimneys" -- named after the school Monk's daughter attended -- as well as the unbalanced hypnotism of "Raise Four," asserts the timelessness and relevance of Monk's brand of bop. The disc ends as it begins with a new twist on an old favorite. Jon Hendricks -- who provides lyrics and vocals on "In Walked Bud" -- recalls the hustle and bustle of the real and spontaneous underground Harlem jam sessions of the late '40s. It is likewise an apt bookend to this chapter in the professional life of Thelonious Monk.

(by Thom Jurek, All Music Guide)

This is the compilation that helped to define the sound of Tropicalia, a Brazilian label whose artists made huge and influential strides in creating exotic pop that was as influenced by psychedelia as it was by samba, bossa nova, and more traditional South American genres. Tropicália not only includes tracks from the label's most important acts (Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa), but presents a large number of collaborations between these artists, many of which are simply amazing. Given the fact that many of the original Tropicalia releases have not been reissued or are not widely available, the compilation stands as a near-definitive package for the sound, and a great opportunity for anyone unfamiliar with the artists to experience an amazing and hugely important genre.

(by Nitsuh Abebe, All Music Guide)

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Ursprünglich 1969 veröffentlicht, ist dieses Album eines der wichtigsten in der musikalischen sowie politischen Geschichte Brasiliens. Durch ihren im musikalischen Gewand verpackten politischen Protest gegen das damalige, brasilianische Regime fanden sich Gilberto Gil und Caetano veloso erst im Gefängnis und später im britischen Exil wieder.