ALCHEMY

Compared to other attempts to blend experimental/progressive rock and folk from the same era, Third Ear Band's debut album sounds astonishingly ahead of its time. Comus might steer for similarly dark and bleak territory, Tangerine Dream on Zeit might use cello to a similarly doomy effect, but all that came later; I'm not aware of anyone in 1969 doing anything remotely similar to this.

There is a certain raga influence - right down to Glen Sweeney using tabla for much of the album - but it's far more artfully handled than the usual "add a bunch of sitar to some psychedlic pop" approach that the Beatles-imitators of the era would run to. Instead, the band use the repetitious and hypnotic aspects of Indian music as merely one tool in their portfolio, with aspects of free jazz, avant-garde classical, and folk music all blending together.

The downfall of a lot of experimental music lies in becoming so obtuse as to be inaccessible, or so technical as to lose sight of feeling. Not so here; Third Ear Band clearly have a very specific mood they wish to evoke here, and they communicate it adeptly. At the same time, the material is intricate enough to reward mutiple listens. The overall impression is of a free jazz band transported to the medieval era, and that's an intriguing enough proposition to keep the album interesting for its running time.