Perhaps initially, the most striking element of this album is its colorful cover, created by the Fool, the same group of artists who painted John Lennon's Rolls Royce. Released in 1967, the album is a treasure trove of very colorful ballads and melodies from the Scottish folk-rock scene. Robin Williamson was the folkie and Mike Heron, the rocker. Together, between them, they played 40 some instruments. Their songs seem almost childlike and the similarity of style to Donovan Leitch is noteworthy. If you like music from Donovan, Joni Mitchell, Fairport Convention, or say American groups of folk style like the Byrds or Buffalo Springfield, then you're in for a very real treat! Some excerpts are: From Chinese White, 'the bent twig of darkness grows the petals of the morning; it shows to them the birds singing just behind the dawning'(another reference to 'the pipers' of Kenneth Grahame's THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS); or from No Sleep Blues, 'I mixed stones in water just to see what it would do, and the water it got stoney and the stones got watery too. So I mixed my feet with water just to see what could be seen, and the water, it got dirty, and my feet, they got quite clean.' The lyrics to all these songs are so colorful that they actually trigger that trancendence in you. Like "The Painting Box", '...somewhere in my mind there is a painting box, I have every color there it's true, and sometimes when I look inside my painting box I seem to pick the colors of you.'
