third ear band - let's discuss.

Wow at that youtube clip! Never heard that before. Who'd have thought popol vuh meets t rex would be such a perfect fit?

This sounds more like the 4th (unreleased) album "Magus".

it does! and i like that album quite a lot, now that i finally found a bloody copy.

i picked up the s/t album a little while back. it wasn't quite clicking for a good while there, but then i put it on as mood music before i went to sleep last night and it really got under my skin, damn near scaring the shit out of me. those discordant claps of violin never let up, like somebody poking a stick up your backside.

I got that Harvest compilation lp A Breath of Fresh Air when I started doing a radio show in Dublin and fell heavily for the Third Ear Band lp on there so was playing it pretty frequently.
I've had Alchemy for years but not got massively into it. A label called Gott put out the 1st 2 lps together about 10 years back which I've had on a shelf for most of taht time.
I'm just ripping tracks to add to a new walkman so have that among the tracks being ripped.

It was interesting to see what material turned up on the LOst Broadcasts dvd cos it seems for the most part to be more electric than what is on those first couple of lps. May just be chance and an inevitable development since from what I understand they developed out of a band who had a lot of their electric gear nicked. So maybe they were likely to be electrifying as money came in for them to buy instruments.

i love third ear band -- can anyone point me to other/contemporary bands that blend those particular medieval/drone/rhythm elements? i've been rewatching my herzog box set and fata morgana is up next. their music is so perfect for that movie!

2019 update - my new band reminds me of third ear band :)

THere's a new box set version of the 2nd s/t lp alongside an unreleased lp from the time and some other stuff
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/third-ear-band-third-ear-band-elements-1970-71-3cd-remastered-expanded-digipak-edition/
meant to pick it up while I was in London but forgot about it. Read the review of the release as fresh news while on the flight over.

There's also a new remaster of the Macbeth soundtrack out.
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/third-ear-band-music-from-macbeth-remastered-expanded-edition/

both through Esoteric/Cherry red

just picked up a copy of the unreleased-at-the-time 4th album The Magus - chucked it on with no expectations and it’s blowing my miiiind - like, there’s the expected hippy dribble BUT some of these tracks sound like proto-post-punk, some weird undiscovered country between PiL and This Heat - perhaps a touch of Eno in the vocals - if you’d told me they were from some lost Wire side-project i would believe it

i knew Lydon name-checked TEB in that interview that’s quoted at the beginning of Rip It Up & Start Again - and feel there’s a line you could draw from that to Flowers of Romance - but obviously this unreleased LP didn’t influence him or anyone!

the synth is unreal too!

listening to this LP is one of those experiences that shreds the space-time continuum! it is from 1972 ffs!!

also, how cool was Simon House’s 1970s?! TEB > Hawkwind > Bowie, what a ride.

Don't forget his early proto prog-doom band High Tide!

Ha I did try High Tide once but found it tough going - perhaps I am ready to go again!

thanks for the rec! i found it on Sp__fy, it does indeed sound prescient

High Tide Sea Shanties is the one to hear if you started with the s/t.
Mind numbingly heavy . & the guitarist is the other guitarist in the London line up of the Misunderstood as I hope is well known.