8.

Pentangle – The Time Has Come

I am cheating here because this is a four CD set, but I didn’t want to fill up the rest with Pentangle records, which might seem unfair to the article. Their version of ‘Tam Lin’ is so awe-inspiringly impressive, episodic, full of interludes of total wyrdness (in the Anglo-Saxon meaning) with running water, orchestra, people beating on the insides of a piano, some of Bert (may you play forever in the isles of the blessed) Jansch’s most beautiful playing and Miss McShee’s voice and the swinging rhythm section, pure bliss and terror and mind-numbing beauty. Throw in the rest and it is as close to perfection as any band has come.