As uncategorisable today as they were back in the high hippie summers of 1968 and 1969, Third Ear Band had its roots in the forward-looking mid-1960s jazz group of wayward pianist Mike Taylor and saxophonist Dave Tomlin. Drummer Sweeny formed the underground improv band Giant Sun Trolley with Tomlin and their drone-laden free-jazz jams, with a near-comatose Taylor, featured regularly at UFO club in 1967 before Sweeny turned his compass eastwards towards the growing interest in Indian music Using the highly unusual sound palette of oboe, violin, cello, slide pipes, hand drums and tabla, Third Ear Band drew together threads of raga, ambient improv and Celtic folk and spun them into hypnotic drones and mystical soundscapes influenced in part by the work of Terry Riley and La Monte Young. To new, open-eared audiences they found favour at underground all-nighters and community benefits as well as performing opening ragas at the giant free Hyde Park rock concerts in 1969. This remastered and expanded edition of their 1969 debut album has worn surprisingly well and would not be out of place today on the sound system at Cafe OTO, or a WOMAD meditation tent. As well as the original album tracks, this brings together demos recorded in 1968, a 1969 BBC John Peel recording and previously unreleased tracks from the album sessions at Abbey Road, including the spellbinding 12-minute ‘Hyde Park Raga’ where Minn's intricate swirling oboe takes on the textures and complexity of an Indian Shenai. A forerunner in some ways to Colin Walcott, Paul McCandless and Ralph Towner's Oregon, as well as John Surman's pastoral works.