LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

First time as a double CD for the first two Third Ear Band albums originally released in 1969 and 1970 on the Harvest record label - Britain's leading art rock label, which was home to Pink Floyd, Kevin Ayers, Pete Brown, Edgar Broughton, and many other progressive acts. Their early albums were produced by Andrew King, who had helped manage Pink Floyd at the beginning of their carreer. The band played at the 1969 Isle Of Wight festival. No band of the 1960s and 1970s achieved the degree of ethnic fusion that the Third Ear Band achieved on 'Alchemy' (1969), "one of the albums that invented world music". An acoustic chamber ensemble of (essentially) tablas, oboe, viola and cello performed Indian, medieval, native American, gypsy, middle-eastern, minimalist, jazz, classical and folk music, all within the same song. The four suites on their second album, 'Third Ear Band (Elements)' (1970), pushed the idea even further: the ethnic sources are not recognizable anymore, and the music flows like a stream of consciousness, a spiritual experience, a daydream. De-contextualized, the "third ear" music is closer to Buddhist meditation than to western composition. ALCHEMY: 1. Mosaic 2. Ghetto Raga 3. Druid I 4. Stone Circle 5. Egyptian Book Of The Dead 6. Area III 7. Dragon Lines 8. Lark RiseELEMENTS: 1. Air 2. Earth 3. Fire 4. Water