Third Ear Band

First thing to note is that this is NOT by the original Third Ear Band.
’Songs From The Hydrogen Jukebox’ is a compilation of tracks by TEB leader and percussionist Glen Sweeney together with a couple of original Third Ear Band numbers. For all of that though, it is a fascinating set of music and thoroughly entertaining.

TEB started out as an improvisational jam, held at venues like UFO and Middle Earth in London, utilising members of the audience and normally after the crowd were fried on acid and danced out.
The band created music based on eastern raga forms and gradually evolved into what today we would recognize as psych/trance – heavy and hypnotic rhythms, repetitive modals and monotone vocals.

Needless to say, TEB were contemporaries of the early and middle period psych bands such as Hawkwind, Gong, Global Village Trucking Company, Suns of Arqa, Quintessence or Incredible String Band, and these two albums feature music that fits well into the acid/trance or eastern/trance categories.

The ‘...Hydrogen Jukebox’ set has some excellent tracks, not least ‘Ab Ra Ka Dab Ra’ with its throbbing bass line and Hawkwind-esque phasing and ‘Water Into Wine’ which has a folky meets Indian feel. ‘Life Is An Art’ seems almost to start mid-song and has a mystic shimmer to it.

The ‘Live’ album has what you would hope for in terms of extended and improvisational numbers. ‘Sun Ra Raga’ is a raga and tone poem combined, heavy with trance elements and tablas bringing in a sense of rhythm. ‘Live Ghosts’ meanders but somehow brings you into it so that there is nothing else around you – very effective.

Together, an intriguing pair of albums.