Review: The Wire, July 2007
Across The Airwaves: BBC Radio
Recordings 1969-1974
HUX 2xCD
This set is the most complete
collection yet of the songs The ISB recorded for the BBC, both
in concert and for sessions commissioned by the likes of John
Peel and Stuart Henry. Some tracks remain unheard, almost
certainly wiped after broadcast, and half a dozen tracks here
are taken from off-radio recordings salvaged from The
Incredibles' persistent fan network. Altogether there are 13
previously unreleased tracks - commendable archaeology from
compiler Adrian Whittaker. The problem, though, is that the
earliest tracks are from February 1969, by which time the albums
that have sealed the group's reputation, The Hangman's Beautiful
Daughter and Wee Tam And The Big Huge, are already trailing in
the group's cinnamon-scented slipstream. The 'cellular songs'
that propagated over those albums like knots of sucker ivy are less common; on the whole the lyrics are less
gnomic, striving for a clarity and innocent delight typical of
the era. Robin Williamson and Mike Heron pole-vault at the
higher notes with an extremely wobbly stick. The In Concert
segments are a real screwball satchel of songs, from the sublime
- Heron's "Worlds They Rise And Fall", uncannily close to
something like John Cale's "Big White Cloud" - to the ridiculous
and rather ill- advised chinoiserie of "Willow Pattern", a sub-
Gilbert and Sullivan micro-operetta with armpit-torching 'Chinee'falsettos.
In 1972 they were still cranking out a "Hangman's Medley",
included here, which although presumably to keep crowds at bay,
is a reminder of a moment when each song could contain ragas,
folky twitchiness, prayer-meet devotionals and hallowed visions,
rolling and tumbling like a sackfull of tickled stoats. One of
the group's last songs "1968",from 1974, seems to hint that they
knew it too: "Did we step wrong somewhere/Did me my friend/Are
we lost? Are we lost?"
ROB YOUNG |
