The celestial climax of kapnikon nights (Qu Junktions' December two-nighter that recasts The Cube stage as a warming hearth of midwinter music) is the righteous on stage alliance of Mike Heron, founding member of sixties psych-folk avatars Incredible String Band, and Alex Neilson’s marauding folk-rock ensemble Trembling Bells. Also making his Cube comeback is Qu darling Dan Haywood, after a memorably rollicking show with Josephine Foster a couple of years back, while DJ John Stapleton keeps things stoked in the bar.

To coincide with Hux Records’ release of Incredible String Band ‘Live at Fillmore East, 1968′ album, original ISB band member, Mike Heron is teaming up with Trembling Bells (Honest Jon’s) to perform classic String Band material from their hugely influential first four albums.

Few bands could be said to embody the spirit of the 1960s more comprehensively than the Incredible String Band. On albums such as ‘The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter’ or ‘Wee Tam and the Big Huge’- with their epic perspectives, pantheistic lyrics and visionary synthesis of musical forms - ISB gave the hippy generation some of their most emblematic anthems. The breadth of their appeal is beguiling, with admirers as diverse as Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) and Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury) professing a long term love affair with the band. In 2010 Fledg’ling reissued their first 4 albums to unanimous critical acclaim, ensuring their appeal to successive generations of fans. One of the new generations of bands indelibly influenced by ISB is the Glasgow based 4 piece Trembling Bells.

The Bells first joined forces with founder member, Mike Heron, in 2010 at “A Very Cellular Song”- the Joe Boyd curated celebration of ISB material at The Barbican, London. Since then they have played at Stewart Lee’s “Austerity Binge”, Cecil Sharp House and recorded a 7″ single of Heron’s ‘Feast of Stephen’, cementing their kinship.

Mike Heron & Trembling Bells: The Circle is Unbroken promises to cover rare and popular material from the ISB song book and much more besides... a spectacular evocation of the times.

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Web links:
http://www.mikeheron.co.uk/
http://www.tremblingbells.com/

Dan Haywood‘s reputation as a UK songwriter/storyteller/performer of the highest distinction has been gathering steam, on the back of his slow-burn classic of a debut triple album, ‘Dan Haywood’s New Hawks’, as well as a string of choice tours and shows with fellow nomads including Josephine Foster, Frank Fairfield, A Hawk and A Hacksaw and Michael Hurley.

Latest album Dapple finds him in the great outdoors (The Forest Of Bowland, to be precise), delivering a sweet and lyrical song cycle that repaints the English folk pastoral in bright and beautiful tones.

https://soundcloud.com/em_southernbird/suspicious-farms