third ear band: after the deluge

amanita muscaria. photograph by ron andrews.

Cello: Ursula Smith
Percussion: Glen Sweeney
Oboe: Paul Minns
Violin, Viola: Richard Coff

From Wiki:

"Third Ear Band evolved within the London alternative and free-music scene of the mid 1960's with members coming from The Giant Sun Trolley & The People Band to create a uniquely improvised music drawing on Eastern raga forms, European folk, experimental and medieval influences. They recorded their first session in 1968 for Ron Geesin which was released under the pseudonym of The National-Balkan Ensemble on one side of a Standard Music Library disk."

Written by Coff; Minns; Smith; Sweeney. The album comprises four key pieces improvised around the elements. Winging its way from Gus, in light of this year's unseasonal deluge.


From "Macbeth": 

"If you can look into the seeds
of time, And say which grain will grow,
and which will not,
Speak."- Banquo, Act I, Scene III
 
"Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it."- Lady Macbeth, Act I, Scene V.
 
Just to clarify a couple of points which may cause some confusion. I'm getting ahead of the game here by quoting from William Shakespeare's "Macbeth", as confined to this post. Third Ear Band did indeed release an album of the same name, but the Macbeth LP was not released until 1972. 

 To further confound things, the image selection - of Minns; Sweeney; and Coff - is actually from the back of the jacket for their 1969 debut, "Alchemy". The quotations, however, did feel entirely appropriate to the music highlighted; hence their inclusion.

▼ THIRD EAR BAND: WATER from "Third Ear Band" LP (Harvest EMI) 1970 (UK)

OUT OF PRINT