Credited with being the first artists to fuse folk and psychedelic sensibilities, the Incredible String Band benefited from having two very complementary frontmen. Robin Williamson and Mike Heron were also extremely versatile musicians, as this, their third album, indicates: he two of them play 17 instruments here, including harpsichord, water harp, sitar, and oud. While Hangman's is a fascinating record dense with exotic rhythms and instrumentation, it also suffers in spots from the airy excesses of its creators. --Steven Stolder
Review by Richie Unterberger
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter is the Incredible String Band's most ambitious album, with Robin Williamson and Mike Heron employing an arsenal of unusual instruments (sitar, gimbri, pan pipe, oud, chahanai, and more), and Dolly Collins adding a couple of the more dignified arrangements. It's usually considered their most important effort by critics, but there were also traces of the sprawling, occasionally grating lack of focus that would increasingly come to characterize their work.
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