"Druid One" album review by Italian musician and writer Alessandro Monti.

Here's a brilliant review on "Druid One - Live at Essen Pop and Blues Festival 1970" by my friend Italian musician and music writer ALESSANDRO MONTI (https://unfolkam.wordpress.com/) a very big fan and expert of Our Holy Band.

"Where do we come from? 

All we know is that we are born on this planet, we live, we walk, we play, we work and then we leave leaving traces of our passage without knowing what will happen to those traces, and without paying the slightest attention to who will follow or collect them.

I have often asked myself these questions while listening to magnificent recordings like this one, in which half the members of the group are now elsewhere, entities of pure spirit beyond this material world without knowing that their improvised music was so intense as to take root in the planet and be rediscovered at unthinkable moments... or maybe they knew? 

Curious to think that the other half of the group continues to make music: a classical cellist and a violin teacher disinterested in his past: that's life. But to many of us this music still communicates a unique and unrepeatable emotion, a ritual that is renewed with every listen as if it did not belong to any era... perhaps because it belongs to ALL eras? 

The answer blows in the wind with this music taken from a concert in 1970, recorded impeccably by German radio at the time of the second album based on the four elements, it is no coincidence that two of them appear: water at the beginning and at the end, after an alchemical sonic journey, the dance of the earth. 

There was a time when we literally had to work miracles to find live recordings of our favorite bands, then the doors of the cosmic archives opened and we listened to all sorts of things. Today the release of a new TEB album seems almost normal, in reality all this is miraculous, especially if we think about the time spent on the dusty shelves of some archives. The music speaks for itself and no comment (let alone "critical") could add something sensible... just a few technical aspects to note: 

side A of this album starts in fade in, certainly after the performance has already begun, while side B ends with a fade out while the group seems to be able to continue endlessly, this makes me think (like Luca wrote) that perhaps it is not a complete tape, but the unrepeatable magic fully justifies its publication with the rare quote from Abelard & Heloise to seal the set: a surprise too good to be true."

Recording: ️ ️ ️ [5/5]

Vinyl dynamics: ️ [3/5]

Performance: ️ ️ [5/5]

Magic: ️ ️[5/5]

 

no©2025LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

An unknown wonderful footage with the Third Ear Band in 1970!

Thanks our friend and TEB fan archeovideologist Spirito Bono we have a new brief footage with the Band on stage aired by WDR TV just few days ago (March 28th, 2016). The little cameo is available in free download at: http://www92.zippyshare.com/v/GsK59Pwl/file.htm

It seems* it's taken from the International Essen Pop & Blues Festival (October 1970) where with musicians as Taj Mahal, Keef Hartley Band and Hardin & York... at the Essen (Germany) Galerie der Entertainer played also The Third Ear Band in its best line-up ever: Glen Sweeney on tablas and tambourine; Paul Minns on oboe; Ursula Smith on cello and Richard Coff on violin.

The brief sequence (just 2:38), alternating the musicians' close-ups and a relaxed audience, is the last part of "Earth" taken from the "Elements" album: this really exclusive document shows Ursula Smith using the arpeggio on cello and Richard Coff playing his violin with a plectrum...

Enjoy this obscure pearl!

 

*Philological/archivistic note: I write "it seems" because the source states that period, but I think it's dubious the Band played in October 1970: in fact in August 1970 Smith and Coff split the group and Bridges and Buckmaster joined the TEB. So it's this live concert was played before, from second half of 1969 to first half of 1970...
Fan and TEB expert Mirco Delfino suggests it could be played on April 24th, 1970 at the Essen TV as reported on the original Paul Minns' journal: in fact the sequence is build on a quite amateurish editing of the band playing on a studio and the audience laying at a live concert...
no©2016 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

A review on "Third Ear Band" by American musician Elliot Knapp

American musician Elliot Knapp, on his personal blog at http://www.elliotknapp.com/2011/02/third-ear-band-third-ear-band.html, has reviewed TEB's second album, the seminal "Third Ear Band". Frequently on the Web fans and journalists use to write on the band, testifing the great interest for the TEB is not expired, and this review is particularly smart...

"Third Ear Band's second album, 1970's self-titled (now sometimes retroactively titled "Elements") builds on the oboe melody-led excursions of "Alchemy" by assigning each of its four songs to an element. While the instrumentation is still basically the same as the debut, the songs are considerably more identifiable from each other.

Every time I listen to this album I'm amazed at how fun a listen it is without being particularly melodic: the opener, "Air" gently coalesces out of the ether based on a repetitive tabla beat and some probing oboe and cello/violin groans and fails to present any melody except for an occasionally repeated violin riff. And yet, its smoky mystery is utterly compelling and lushly gorgeous, especially considering how few instruments produce the music. "Earth" shifts gears completely, with the strings playing pizzicato over a much more minstrel-like beat from the drums. Dual oboes improvise gently, probing Eastern-scales, while the tempo subtly gathers pace. All of a sudden it's an ecstatic frenzy, then just as suddenly the tension disappears, the rhythmic pattern slightly shifts, and the process starts again. Despite the general mood and ever-present tonal center of the music, there's no real melody to speak of - clear and quite listenable evidence that melody needn't reign supreme as the only musical element worthy of close attention.

"Fire" is a brilliant study in high-register drones and another shift in texture, with a relentless wavering feeling not unlike that of a dancing flame. "Water" closes the album with an actual melody (imagine that) over sustained violin with just enough dissonance to remind us that we're not in any territory that had been scouted at the time of the album's release, or really a whole lot more since. As I listen and re-listen in rapture to the strange and evocative sounds these instruments make together, I'm not always sure how the structures pertain to the elements they're named for, but in reality it's immaterial - by consciously giving each suite a distinct mood, the band stretched itself beyond its impressive but sometimes nebulous debut and gave structure to another forty odd minutes of rare beauty with memorable compositional elements".

no©2011 Luca Ferrari