Musical Style
The music of the ISB ranged from conventional folk songs to "art songs" and hybrid forms that were a precursor to World Music. In 1967–68 they were sometimes described as part of pop music's "avant-garde", and were compared to The Beatles. Williamson claimed that, as both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones saw them play before Sgt. Pepper and Their Satanic Majesties Request were recorded, the ISB were an influence on those albums. One of young Bob Dylan's favourite songs was 'October Song' from ISB's debut album (reference to come), and a careful listening to ISB's early (60s) albums will reveal just how much they influenced Bob Dylan's style of singing (especially notable on 'The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion'). In addition, ISB have been declared the first 'world music' band because of their artful use of exotic instruments (collected in Morocco and from India, for example) and their incorporation of a wide variety of musical styles into their own unique musical pastiche. No other band in the 60s equalled them in this endeavour (reference to come). Robert Plant claimed that Led Zeppelin found their way by playing 'The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' (see above). Following in the footsteps of ISB, Led Zeppelin later also incorporated exotic (north African)instruments to great effect (e.g. on 'No Quarter').
Both Mike Heron and Robin Williamson would insert seemingly unrelated sections in their songs in a way that has been described as "always surprising, laughably inventive, lyrically prodigious".
Read more about this topic: The Incredible String Band
Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or style:
“Then, bringing me the joy we feel when wee see a work by our favorite painter which differs from any other that we know, or if we are led before a painting of which we have until then only seen a pencil sketch, if a musical piece heard only on the piano appears before us clothed in the colors of the orchestra, my grandfather called me the [hawthorn] hedge at Tansonville, saying, “You who are so fond of hawthorns, look at this pink thorn, isn’t it lovely?””
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)