SLIDING GLIDING WORLDS

Many regard this as their best cassette-era release, but I'm not one of them, as I fell "There is Nothing" and even "The Bits Between the Bits" are better. But of course, this being an OZRIC album, it's full of great stuff, and I never ran across a bad OZRIC album. This being originally a privately issued cassette, the cover artwork was still black and white (done by Blim, an anonymous figure responsible for the trippy colorful psychedelic artwork once the band started recording for proper labels). The band also witness the most major linup change at this point, with two major figures coming in. One is the arrival of drummer Merv Pepler. He was obviously responsible for several of OZRICS best albums, and he stayed with the band until 1994 (previous drummer, Nick Van Gilder aka. "Tig" left because he really wasn't too interested in the music OZRICS played, and you'll find out once he joined Jamiroquai for a short time from 1992 to '94). Another key figure to make his premiere here is John Egan, on flutes (sometimes he goes by his Gaelic name of Eoin Eogan, since if I'm not mistakened, he is Irish). He is still with the band to this day, and he was responsible for giving the band a more ethnic bent, which obviously helped improved on the band's sound.

"Sliding Gliding Worlds" is quite an accomplishment given it was originally a privately issued cassette the band released themselves. While I though "There is Nothing" was better because it was more energetic and exciting, "Sliding Gliding Worlds" was perhaps a more consistent offering (you don't get experiments like the original version of "The Eternal Wheel", for example) and the band was obviously going for a more exotic and ethnic feel. Here you get the original version of "White Rhino Tea" (later re-recorded for Strangeitude). This version has a more '80s sound (especially the drum machines). "Kick Muck" makes its premiere here as well (exactly the same as "Pungent Effulgent", but with an ambient experiment tagged at the end, rather than seguing in to "Agog in the Ether"). "The Dusty Pouch" was the album's only excursion in to reggae, but what makes this really interesting is John's exotic flute at the end. "Mae Hong Song", despite the Chinese title, sounds more like Balinesian gamelan. "(Omnidirectional) Bhadra" has more of an Indian feel, no doubt helped by someone named Marcus "Carcus" playing tabla. It's amazing that in '88 any band would combine both digital and analog (since too many bands at that time were too stuck on digital to give a rat's ass to anything that existed before the Yamaha DX-7). This is some great material, to say the least, and it's little wonder why the band would get proper label treatment pretty soon after this.

Question: what is most similar to an "Ozric Tentacles" album? Response: another "Ozric Tentacles" one!

This is now the fourth of their pre-label career (if you exclude the "Live Ethereal Cereal") and to be honest, there is nothing new here. Well, maybe the sound quality is a little better and there seems to be some more cohesion in the song writing.

Still, the reggae-oriented mood that is present on each of their earlier releases (at one point or another of them) is again repeated. I wonder why they had this "brilliant" idea to combine reggae with space- rock. Totally useless IMO ("Yaboop Yaboop", "The Dusty Pouch").

"Sliding Gliding Worlds" is another long recording which doesn't offer lots of variety. Some fine guitar ("Soda Water") but mostly repetitive music. You can play all their prior releases so far randomly, without noticing much difference.

My fave and upbeat track on this recording is "Guzzard": it features a wild beat with very powerful guitar (but it only last for two minutes). "Kick Muck" is another good one, with some Oriental flavours that are welcome to break the boring mood.

Still, the band should be granted for their long and continuous belief in their music. For a long time, they were obliged to produce their own music in the form of self-recorded and distributed cassettes before they finally signed a deal with a record company. But it doesn't make their music better.

Some fine and atmospheric tunes, like "Sliding And Gliding" or "It's A Hup Ho World" even if the latter sounds almost as coming out of a soundtrack and indeed the OK "Atmospheric Underslunky".

"Fetch Me The Pongmaster" might be alright but it is hardly a moving piece either. Repetitive for almost over six minutes if you would exclude the fine guitar break towards the end.

Some ethnical flavours with "Mae Hong Song" (which is a city located in Northern Thailand). It's fine when you're there but that's it. Some Indian chants during the reggae-ish (again) "White Rhino Tea" won't be more convincing, I'm afraid. Just like the jungle closing track.

Actually, this might well be the more interesting OT's work so far. Five out of ten, but I can hardly consider this as a good album. Two stars.

SLIDING GLIDING WORDS is the fifth release that continued the free-cassette only releases of OZRIC TENTACLES during their 80s run as an up and coming psychedelic rock band of the ages before they would finally release a real first album titled 'Pungent Effulgent' in 1989. While very little sets apart these early releases as they are all a conglomeration of Hawkwind inspired space rock with the prog leanings, elements of jazz-fusion, electronica, dub and ambient sound effects, this one has a more chilled out vibe to it compared to the preceding albums that ranged from 'Erpsongs' to 'There Is Nothing.'

And once again, SLIDING GLIDING WOLRDS presents a fluid range of improvisational sounding pieces that continue the sampling and synthesizer attacks. OZRIC TENTACLES took two years to release this next cassette only hour long experience due to a lineup change where Tom Brooks left his keyboard post and was replaced by Ed Wynne which is possibly why this album sounds more relaxed with less heavy guitar outbursts and more of a cementing of a sound that would emerge in the 90s.

Really not much can be said about SLIDING GLIDING WORLDS that can't be applied to the entire 80s run of cassette-only releases. For the most part they are practically indistinguishable by the time they get to album number five as the beats, tempos and timbres are familiar territory however OZRIC TENTACLES still retains their very own distinct sound that they are slowly refining with more world music influences. As with the other early releases, i personally don't find SLIDING GLIDING WORLDS to be any more essential than any other of the era, however this if you are seeking out the raw early primeval material from the OZRICs then this one is as good as any other.

While the original is practically impossible to come across these days, as with all six of the cassette-only releases SLIDING GLIDING WORLDS was eventually released in 1994 by Dovetail Records on CD and today can be found digitally remastered and available in the 'Vitamin Enhanced' boxed set.

Sliding Gliding Worlds was the penultimate release in the series of self-published cassettes that Ozric Tentacles prior to recording their debut LP, Pungent Effulgent. It also represents, on average, the culmination of their evolution throughout the 1980s - for the last cassette, 1989's The Bits Between the Bits, was (as the title implies) an odds-and-sods collection spanning their cassette era.

Whilst the earliest cassettes in the series had their sound issues, here it's apparent that the Ozrics' command of the studio has reached a high level of polish; indeed, on recent remastered issues you wouldn't know this originally came out as a cassette. Along with the preceding There Is Nothing, it represents perhaps the cream of the band's 1980s output.