The Incredible String Band was, for several years, the emblem of hippie communes in Great Britain. They played the folk music that was fashionable during the folk revival, but did so with the formal freedom typical of hippie culture.

Initially in Edinburgh there was the duo of Clive Palmer (banjo) and Robin Williamson (guitar), which became a trio named Clive's Incredible String Band. When the two met Mike Heron in Glasgow, the album Incredible String Band (Elektra, 1966) was born. The album contains the first na�ve gems of Heron (When the Music Starts to Play, Everything's Fine Right Now) and Williamson (October Song, Womankind), both improvised multi-instrumentalists. Palmer left for India, and the ISB was reduced to the duo of Heron and Williamson. Heron embodied the na�ve, jovial, and curious soul of the group. His contribution was to color Williamson�s exotic, magical, and medieval visions with music-hall, kitsch, and calypso.

5,000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion (Elektra, 1967) was the album that made them a cult name. More than a musical work, it is a joyful celebration of the hippie culture of the time�a record full of Indian moods (Chinese White) and quarter tones (First Girl I Loved, one of Williamson�s classics), with peaks of exuberant surrealism (Blues For The Muse), philosophical lullabies by Heron (Hedgehog Song), and esoteric visions by Williamson (Madhatter's Song, My Name Is Death).

Their eclectic tribal love parties (the main reference point for English hippies) freely drew on every musical reminiscence and every stringed instrument; their folk anthems mixed a cappella choral sounds, Indian mantras, children�s refrains, tropics and cabaret, spirituals, and music-hall.

The duo was ready to compose a masterpiece of the stature of Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (Elektra, 1968), a collection of magical rituals, sometimes macabre, sometimes pagan, sometimes playful, set in a world of witches, minotaurs, and werewolves. These psalms rely on spectral harmonies, built by layering elongated vocals over disjointed instrumental textures (sitar, tablas, violin, kazoo, etc.) and these over free rhythms. Each track draws inspiration from a different tradition, making the album as a whole appear as a surreal collage of musical styles. Compared to the previous album, the pieces are longer, freer, and denser in sound (Williamson alone plays 15 instruments).
The gentle Koeeoaddi There is a delicate Donovan-like refrain with �Tibetan� vocal balancing � la Buckley and Scottish folk-ballad choruses. In Swift As The Wind, the nostalgic lament of the lead voice intersects with the free singing of another voice�ecstasy or subconscious, dream or hallucination. Martial, epic, emphatic, Minotaur Song is counterpointed, at harpsichord rhythm, by an almost Gregorian choir of basses and trebles, but in diction and melody it rather recalls a hybrid of troubadour, operetta, and Brechtian estrangement.
Experiments abound in all the tracks and sometimes approach the ramshackle acid-folk of the Holy Modal Rounders: Renaissance dances and Arabic flutes in Witches Hat, harpsichords and harps in the baroque Waltz Of The New Moon, equatorial percussion and splashes in Water Song, vaudeville and cowboy dances in Mercy I Cry City. The long meditation Three Is A Green Crown is sung to a driving sitar rhythm, with an inflection oscillating between the muezzin�s call and a Buddhist litany. The grand folk suite A Very Cellular Song (13 minutes) is a carnival of disguises: first a simple �good night� refrain is repeated to the rhythm of tambourines and clapping, then the central theme, a cheerful Renaissance interlude with wild harpsichord, flutes, and kazoo, proceeds like a circus parade, with sudden mood changes, at times suspended in the heartfelt lament of a gypsy violin, at times adopting Mediterranean cadences of guitar and jaw harp, and in the finale the complex interplay between a small organ and a flute elevates the song to a mantric anthem in a crescendo of Indian percussion.

The double album Wee Tam and the Big Huge (Elektra, 1968) accentuated the tone of a biblical parable but also reduced the experimentation, while still confirming the duo�s stylistic eclecticism, capable of ranging from the childlike fairy tale of Puppies to the raga of Yellow Snake and the playful rainbow of Douglas Traherne Harding.

The atmosphere completely relaxed after abandoning the lysergic culture and embracing Scientology. The albums became optimistic and serene, with Heron always playing the jester (Job's Tears) and Williamson the visionary (The Circle Is Unbroken and especially Maya).

Changing Horses (Elektra, 1969), with White Bird and Creation (16 minutes), and I Looked Up (Elektra, 1970), with the quadrille Black Jack Davy and the two long suites Pictures in an Mirror and When You Find Out Who You Are, constitute an interim period, poor in inspiration. Not coincidentally, this corresponds to the historical crisis of the hippie phenomenon.

The pantomime of U (Elektra, 1970), in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist and dancer Malcolm LeMaistre, increased the importance of the visual element. The double album indulged in elegiac tones and medieval imitations, ranging from Eastern-inspired instrumentals (Elwool Suite), Indian lullabies (Cutting The Strings), operatic vaudeville (Juggler's Song), to folk jumps (Puppet Song). Williamson was at the peak of his creativity, as demonstrated by Queen of Love, Invocation, and the marathon suite Rainbow. Fragmented, pretentious, and at times cloying, the album revealed the limited substance of the band�s communal utopia.

Meanwhile, Clive Palmer, having returned from a trip to India, had formed the Famous Jug Band, which released Sunshine Possibilities (Liberty, 1969), and then Clive's Original Band (COB), which issued two milestones of psychedelic folk, Spirit Of Love (CBS, 1971) and Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart (Polydor, 1972 � Radioactive, 2005). The exotic, eccentric, and melancholic sound of the latter, dominated by the harmonium, remained a point of reference for the genre.

After the soundtrack for the film Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending (Island, 1970) and the anthology Seasons They Change (1971), containing the previously unreleased suite Queen Juanita, the album Liquid Acrobat As Regards the Air (Island, 1971) opened the band�s final phase: music still enchanting and evocative, consisting of heartfelt spiritual psalms (Worlds They Rise And Fall) and intricate arrangements (Williamson�s suite Darling Belle, blending medieval music, dixieland, liturgical elements, etc.), but lacking the na�ve effervescence of earlier times.

It is significant that the opening song of Earthspan (Island, 1972) was written by LeMaistre, the catchy My Father Was a Lighthouse Keeper. The album essentially attempted to propose a chart-friendly folk-rock.

This did not prevent curiously freaky songs like Old Buccaneer and Circus Girl on No Ruinous Feud (Island, 1973), another commercial album, and another long suite, Ithkos (1974), which occupied an entire side of Hard Rope and Silken Twine (Island, 1974), as well as Williamson�s Dreams Of No Return, from keeping alive that acrobatic art straddling songcraft and experimentalism, each album being a fairy-tale, visionary collage of liquid melodies imbued with mystical innocence and mischievous humor.

The band broke up, but the two leaders had already embarked on solo careers. Heron (with LeMaistre) would simply continue the work of the last ISB. Mike Heron (Casablanca, 1969) and Smiling With Bad Reputations (Elektra, 1971) were his first and best post-ISB albums. The latter features contributions from The Who (anonymously), John Cale, and Richard Thompson.

Robin Williamson moved to Los Angeles and set up a Merry Band of stringed instruments to perform Celtic ballads on mythological themes. Myrrh (Island, 1972) is not particularly original, but Journey Edge (Flying Fish, 1977) is perhaps his masterpiece. Orchestrated for harp, harpsichord, flute, accordion, violin, guitar, double bass, and percussion, the album contains gentle pieces like Mythic Time and Lullaby For A Rainy Night, realistic reflections like Rap City Rhapsody, and a suggestive instrumental like Voices Of The Barbary Coast.
Williamson�s precious style of composition and arrangement is equally evident on American Stonehenge (Flying Fish, 1978). After the less successful Glint At The Kindling (Flying Fish, 1979), Songs Of Love And Parting (Flying Fish, 1982) is dominated instead by synthesizer. Music For The Mabinogi (Flying Fish, 1983) and the soundtrack for The Dragon Has Two Tongues (Towerbell, 1984) closed his major period.

Williamson recorded several more albums inspired by scottish and celtic music, but returned to a major work only with Wheel Of Fortune (Flying Fish, 1993), a collaboration with John Renbourn, and with At The Pure Fountain (Pig's Whisker, 1999), a collaboration with Clive Palmer. In 2000 Williamson, Heron and Palmer reunited for a new Incredible String Band. After a transitional Seed At Zero (2000), Williamson crowned the personal and collective resurrection with Skirting the River Road (ECM, 2002), featuring jazz musicians Mat Maneri and Barre Phillips. The Iron Stone (2006) was an inferior imitation.

Clive Palmer died in 2014.