Imagine dialing around on the radio and stumbling across this utterly fried live session from The Incredible String Band late one night in 1968. Transmitted via Bob Fass’ legendary Radio Unnameable show, this is some seriously psychedelic free-folk, with Mike Heron and Robin Williamson delivering ecstatic visions and out-of-time tales. Rob Young, in his highly recommended Electric Eden, summed up the ISB best when he said the group “captured [the] elemental essence of music as an intimate rite in the flickering light, imparting sacred mysteries to rapt ears in the sapphire deep of night.” Radio Unnameable, indeed. Tune in. words / t wilcoxDownload: The Incredible String Band :: Radio Unnameable – NYC, 1968I have mentioned the Incredible String Band before and told the story about going to see them last in Leicester and how much we loved the band but paths were changed, forks in roads discovered and we could not follow into the ludicrous stupidity of LRH into the very depths of Scientology. Here the radio broadcast, which I suspect needs some qualification as to what "utterly fried" may mean, includes a few of my very favourite songs from 'You Get Brighter', 'Maya' and the peerless 'Douglas Traherne Harding' as it explores albeit through a clumsy portmanteau of ideas and inherent in the name's misuse, amalgamating as it does two seperate individuals, one the 17thC English Christian mystic Thomas Traherne and the highly mystical concept of D.E. Harding's On Being Without a Head which I still hold as relevant and explored at Art school where we did such things in those days. It is still worth exploring IMHO as a self exploration into experiencing who you really are! This is of course how the ISB came across Scientology with it's missives of 'Find Out Who You Really Are' issued as a threat! [see Cyril Vosper's 'The Mind Benders etc] I prefer to stick with Harding . . . . . .even Traherne over Hubbard. Zen over nonsense . . . . . . love over gold
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| Ernst-Mach-drawing - on being without a head exercise |
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