The record
At a glance
- Artist
- The Incredible String Band
- Released
- April 1970
- Album
- Sixth studio album
- Original tracks
- Six
- Label
- Elektra EKS-74061
- Producer
- Joe Boyd
Why it matters
Two long Williamson mirrors inside Heron's concise song album
I Looked Up gives the Incredible String Band's expanded quartet a concise six-track frame instead of repeating the scale of Wee Tam and the Big Huge. Mike Heron writes four songs and Robin Williamson two, but Williamson's two compositions together occupy more than twenty-one minutes. That imbalance creates the album's architecture: compact pieces introduce, answer and finally release the two extended reflections. Black Jack Davy brings a traditional ballad identity into a newly credited Heron arrangement, connecting the group's experimental present to older narrative movement.
Letter uses Dave Mattacks' only appearance to create the album's clearest folk-rock pulse without turning him into a standing member. Pictures in a Mirror and When You Find Out Who You Are develop long form through vocal character, recurring images and instrumental shifts rather than an extended solo. The quartet's bass, violin, flute, gimbri, organ, harpsichord, piano, dulcimer and percussion show that a reduced track count does not mean a reduced palette. Its importance lies in proportion: long and short, inherited and original, collective and author-led material all remain audible without being forced into one concept.
London, 1969-70
A compact record made on the way toward U
Changing Horses had formally presented Williamson, Heron, McKechnie and Simpson together as the Incredible String Band. That 1969 album concentrated six tracks around the long White Bird and Creation while bringing electric guitar, Hammond organ and bass further forward. I Looked Up retained the six-track design and again placed one extended Williamson composition on each side. The album was recorded in 1969 while the group was also developing the much larger music-and-theatre project U.
Joe Boyd produced and John Wood engineered, continuing a recording partnership central to the band's Elektra catalogue. Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention was invited for Letter alone; the other five tracks retain the quartet's own changing approaches to pulse. Elektra assigned the American stereo catalogue number EKS-74061 and released the album in April 1970. U followed later the same year, making I Looked Up a compact studio statement between two more visibly transitional projects.
Four plus one
The established quartet and one track-specific drummer
Heron's four compositions define the album's entry, first transition, second-side opening and close, giving him control of every position surrounding Williamson's long pieces. His guitars and keyboards allow those shorter songs to differ sharply: Black Jack Davy moves through fiddle-led ballad energy, while Letter gains a firmer drum-driven profile. Williamson's two leads use guitar, violin, flute, gimbri and percussion as changing narrative voices rather than a fixed backing arrangement. McKechnie's roles extend beyond singing: bass, dulcimer, drums and keyboards let her alter both harmony and pulse.
Simpson supplies bass across much of the programme and adds violin, percussion and vocals where the arrangement requires a different ensemble balance. Mattacks belongs only to Letter, so his presence should not be used to recast the entire album as a Fairport-style rhythm-section record. Boyd and Wood keep bowed strings and breath instruments distinct from keyboards and bass, preserving the quartet's handmade exchanges. Schaumann's illustration credit belongs to the package rather than the musical personnel and is retained as part of the album's authored object.
Six changing arrangements
Traditional motion, electric pulse and long-form theatre
Black Jack Davy begins with quick guitar and sawing violin around a traditional narrative pattern, making old ballad motion feel immediate rather than archival. Letter tightens the pulse through Mattacks' drums and Heron's guitar and harpsichord, creating the shortest and most overtly band-driven arrangement. Pictures in a Mirror then occupies the rest of side one, using Williamson's changing vocal register, guitar, violin and percussion to move between reflection and enacted story. This Moment opens side two with Heron's guitar and a sustained ensemble frame, turning the present into something observed as it passes.
When You Find Out Who You Are slows the side into an extended self-question, with Williamson's guitar supported by piano, bass, voices and McKechnie's drums. Fair as You closes through Heron's melody, Williamson's flute and gimbri and the combined voices of McKechnie and Simpson. The two long tracks are separated by the side break and should not be heard as a continuous suite. Across the album, rhythm changes by personnel: communal bowing and bass, a guest drummer, hand percussion and quartet drums each produce a different kind of forward movement.
Track guide
Six pieces divided evenly across two sides
Black Jack Davy
Heron recasts a traditional ballad figure as the album's fast-moving entrance. Guitar and the violins of Williamson and Simpson carry pursuit and decision in the arrangement, while McKechnie's bass gives the old narrative a physical new-group footing.
Letter
Mattacks' drums appear for this track alone, locking Heron's guitar and harpsichord into the record's most direct pulse. Its brevity makes communication feel urgent before the first side opens into Williamson's much longer mirror.
Pictures in a Mirror
Williamson closes side one with almost eleven minutes of reflected identity and theatrical perspective. Voice, guitar, violin and percussion keep changing the apparent distance between narrator and image; repetition makes the mirror less reliable, not more explanatory.
This Moment
Heron restarts the album through an insistence on the present. Guitar, bass and shared voices create spacious circular motion, allowing a six-minute song to feel suspended without adopting the episodic scale of the Williamson tracks.
When You Find Out Who You Are
Williamson turns self-recognition into a process rather than an answer. Piano, bass, drums and supporting voices accumulate around the guitar-led vocal; the ten-minute duration leaves identity open instead of reducing it to a slogan.
Fair as You
Heron closes with comparison and address rather than another large philosophical construction. Williamson's flute and gimbri broaden the acoustic color, while McKechnie and Simpson help the ending resolve through ensemble relation.
Looking and becoming
Identity, reflection, presence, change and proportion
I Looked Up is not a narrative concept album, but looking, recognition and changing perspective connect its title to several songs. Black Jack Davy begins with identity known through a traditional name and decisive movement. Letter reduces distance through communication, then Pictures in a Mirror makes resemblance and reflection unstable. This Moment shifts the emphasis from reflected image to immediate time.
When You Find Out Who You Are frames identity as discovery without specifying one doctrinal conclusion. Fair as You returns the process of looking to another person, ending in relation rather than private certainty. Heron's concise language and Williamson's extended association offer different methods for approaching the same questions. The sequence moves outward and inward repeatedly, making the act of attention more coherent than any single story.
Elektra 74061
Peter Schaumann's illustration around a three-and-three LP
The original American stereo issue carried Elektra catalogue number EKS-74061; early European issues also used the 2469 002 number. Peter Schaumann is credited with the sleeve illustrations. Three tracks occupy each side, but the durations are deliberately unequal within those groups.
Pictures in a Mirror takes the final position on side one and When You Find Out Who You Are stands at the center of side two. The sleeve's six-song credit structure helps separate the four Heron compositions from the two Williamson works. Later digital editions retain the same six-track boundary and should not be used to insert material from the concurrent U project.
Four UK chart weeks
Number thirty in Britain and number 196 in America
Elektra released I Looked Up in April 1970. The album entered the UK chart in May, peaked at number thirty and remained listed for four weeks. In the United States it reached number 196 on the Billboard album chart.
The British result matched the peak of Changing Horses but extended its chart stay from one week to four. The album produced no separate hit single, and its two ten-minute tracks resisted a conventional singles-centered presentation. Later criticism has divided over the extended material while generally recognizing the instrumental command of the quartet and the immediacy of Heron's shorter songs.
The sixth record
A concentrated hinge between Changing Horses and U
The record preserves the quartet phase in a clearer studio frame than the theatrical double album U that followed. Black Jack Davy remained important enough for the band to revisit the traditional material on Earthspan in 1972. Letter documents a controlled use of an outside drummer without surrendering the group's own instrumental flexibility. Pictures in a Mirror and When You Find Out Who You Are form a useful pair because both are long yet differ in dramatic pace and ensemble weight.
The album demonstrates that Williamson-Heron authorship need not be measured by track count alone. McKechnie and Simpson make the six arrangements materially different through bass, strings, drums, dulcimer and voices. Its modest American chart position and stronger British run place it accurately inside the band's audience rather than inflating it into a lost commercial breakthrough. The lasting value is concentration: six pieces capture a group changing form without pretending the transition was complete.
Original programme
Keep the two long pieces in their side positions
The original album contains six tracks. Three tracks occupy each side. Pictures in a Mirror closes side one. Fair as You is the original ending.
Heron wrote four tracks and Williamson two. Williamson's two pieces both exceed ten minutes. Mattacks plays only on Letter. Material from U does not belong inside this album.
A listening path
From Black Jack's flight to Fair as You
- Enter through the old ballad's new quartet motion.
- Hear Mattacks alter only Letter.
- Give Pictures in a Mirror the uninterrupted end of side one.
- Restart with Heron's focus on the present.
- Let the second long Williamson piece develop at its own slower pace.
- Use Fair as You as a relational close.
- Compare authorial proportion by duration as well as track count.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Official six-track digital programme and editorial context — Apple Music / Elektra
- Original sides, catalogue and production — Elektra Records Master Discography
- Track list, durations, personnel, engineering and artwork — AllMusic
- Original LP catalogue and writer attributions — Finna / Helmet Libraries
- Official UK chart history — Official Charts Company
- US album chart history — Billboard
- Official catalogue chronology — MusicBrainz