After the implosion of the Incredible String Band and the session mayhem of his first solo record, Smiling Men With Bad Reputations, Mike Heron decided to stay at home for a while. At the musical base-camp of all that had gone before, an unassuming cottage south of Edinburgh, he embarked on a series of ‘basement tapes’ that have remained scattered and largely unheard until now.
Across 27 remastered tracks, Heron’s desire to escape the constraints of a band set-up is writ large, with only two veiled nods to his illustrious past: ISB’s Red Hair gets reworked as a power ballad and Sold On Your Love gets a pop makeover. Elsewhere, he stretches theme and content in almost every possible direction: Mexican Girl is Heron as Dylan, while the distinctly odd Lost In Space has him as an astronaut floating in space to the sound of a phasing synth.
Not consistent in the least, these recordings are nevertheless cut through with Heron’s ability to find a song wherever he looked, and as a window into his songwriting ethos, it’s a lesson in trade. A fine satellite in the everexpanding musical universe of the ISB, this is the sound of Heron in full flight.
