GHETTORAGA The Third Ear Band's Official Archive : August 2015

Third Ear Band's "Stone Circle" was aired on August 4th, 2015 at the Italian Radio 3 programme called "Sei Gradi" (Six Grades) (go and listen to at http://www.radio3.rai.it/dl/portaleRadio/media/ContentItem-9b2fa418-0880-4b84-ba6b-a6a1d22161f0.html#).

Radio journalist Luca Damiani introduced the band as "one of the few researching a kind of music not necessarily Blues or Rock", with straight relation with traditional Chinese and Indian folk music...

With an usual habit in Italy, no quotations to the extraordinary adventures the reformed band lived during the Eighties with three brand new records for MaSo and some great live concerts around the country. Nothing about this Archive, of course...

Anyway, in spite of the endemic Italian music journalists' ignorance and superficiality about facts, Third Ear Band experience is still existing with two new CDs and some little suprises in the next future...
In loving memory of Glen Sweeney, Paul Minns, Ben Cartland, Mike Marchant, Mel Davis and Roger Bunn.

no©2015 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

After "Necromancers of the Drifting West" has been released, some reviews are surfacing from the Net...

"When I saw this and saw no information about it, as well as who was releasing it, I was very, very suspicious, but I am very happy to report that this is a great and very high quality release sonically for all very rare or unreleased recordings from 45 years ago. First there is 16' of the TEB's very first professional recordings, then there is a high quality outtake from the 1st album, a very interesting, electric outtake from their shelved third Harvest album, from before Macbeth, and three off-air, but quite decent sounding tracks from a BBC "In Concert" broadcast, hosted by John Peel. It additionally features informative and seemingly correct notes from uberfan and band archivist Luca Ferrari. In short - any fan of the band has to own this. Highly recommended."

(Wayside Music - http://www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Third-Ear-Band-Necromancers-Of-The-Drifting-West__25-USD-CD-HST311CD.aspx)

"Third Ear Band were a British psychedelic folk band that evolved within the London alternative and free-music scene of the mid-1960s. Members came from The Giant Sun Trolley and The People Band to create an improvised music drawing on Eastern raga forms, European folk, experimental and medieval influences. They recorded their first session in 1968 for Ron Geesin which was released under the pseudonym of The National Balkan Ensemble on one side of a Standard Music Library disc. Their first actual album, Alchemy, was released on the EMI Harvest label in 1969, (featuring John Peel playing jaw harp on one track), followed by Air, Earth, Fire, Water (aka Elements) in 1970. They recorded two soundtracks, the first in 1970 for an animated film by Herbert Fuchs of Abelard and Heloise (which first saw release as part of Luca Ferrari's Necromancers of the Drifting West Sonic Book in 1997) Luca writes: On 1996, when I decided to write a book on the Third Ear Band, I collaborated with of all the members of the group, except Richard Coff (apparently no one knew where he was) and Ursula Smith. The first time the title was intended for the book, it was called "Tickling the Third Ear" and the idea was to make an historical, chronological reconstruction of the TEB's story to free the band from that aura of mystery surrounding his story. But just at the end of the writing, when I completed the essay for the introduction, I decided for "Necromancers of the Drifting West": for myself, in fact, the Band has advanced the so-called World Music and the multicultural/intercultural dimension of the relation between West and the rest of the world. At the same time, in my opinion, their music was a sort of sign, a monition of musical (and cultural) decline of the old Europe (for that reason the image of 'necromancers'). A group strongly political, I think, because "silence", acoustic (as natural) sounds (no words), minimalism aesthetic, are really 'political' today, in this age of excess of experiences."

(Downtown Music Gallery Newsletter, July 2015 - http://www.downtownmusicgallery.com/Main/news/Newsletter-2015-07-17.html)

"Le label Gonzo Multimedia s'apprête à sortir deux CD d'archives du mythique groupe acid-ethno-experimentalo-médiévalo-folko-psychedelico-etc. THIRD EAR BAND.
Le premier, Necromancers of the Drifting West (du titre de l'ouvrage de Luca Ferrari, grand porte-parole de la légende du groupe), contient huit morceaux enregistrés entre 1968 et 1971 et restés officiellement inédits jusqu'à aujourd'hui. On y trouvera ainsi des pièces du National Balkan Ensemble (pré-THIRD EAR BAND), un inédit issu des sessions du premier album, Alchemy, un inédit provenant d'une session pour un disque qui n'a jamais vu le jour et une session BBC de 1971.
Necromancers of the Drifting West sortira le 25 mai prochain, et devrait être suivi de la publication d'un concert du groupe (dans sa configuration des années 1980-90) qui n'était sorti qu'en K7. Restez à l'écoute..."

(Traverses magazine, May 2015 - www.rythmes-croises.org/traversesmag/modules/news/article.php?storyid=584)