OZRIC TENTACLES

I like dividing their discography in three with the first six albums from the 80's of which I have one being part one and then seven from the nineties their most popular period by far being part two and then post 90's we have eight records of which I have three and "The Floor's Too Far Away" is easily my favourite from their most recent period. I was thinking the other day that the happiest music fan must be the one who's favourite band is the OZRIC TENTACLES. I mean Ed Wynne has decided to keep the same formula from the start because it works. So as a fan you know that the flavour of each album might be slightly different but yeah I'm getting the same tasting Big Mac I always get.

One dimensional? Again if it works why change it? I don't have any of their albums in my "best of" Psychedelic list but that my tastes in music and finding that a consistently good album from this band is hard to find although that post 90's record I mentioned does that for me. Even the cover art work like the band's music continues in the same vein. They went one style for their first five then the rest is in the style most of us know. This is a brand!

Anyway not my favourite from this band by a long shot, just feeling like I said a little stale to my ears. As usual we get some ethnic sounds, plenty of synths often in the style I don't like, some reggae of course and silliness with the beeps and blips. I enjoy the guitar parts the most but I definitely didn't even consider that this was a 4 star record even though it was a fun week listening to it.

1. "Velmwend" (4:38) a blues-rock based space jam that not even poor sound recording can hinder or hold back. (8.75/10)

2. "Fast Dots" (3:48) a little funk bass propels this one into Egypt's era of ancient astronauts. (8.5/10)

3. "Thyroid" (5:05) now using a slow, spacious reggae rhythm foundation to space out over. (8.5/10)

4. "Spiral Mind" (3:33) opens like a 1960s heavy blues-rock classic before the synths and two guitars take us from classic rock into alien space communiqués. A cool, cool song despite not really preview things to come for this band. (8.75/10)

5. "Synth On a Plinth" (1:59) solo synth play for the first 40 seconds until second keyboard joins in with a single repeated arpeggiated chord progression. (4.25/5)

6. "Dharma Reggae" (4:56) feels like a late 1970s/1980s TANGERINE DREAM opening--even with the big, thick bass notes thrown intermittently into the mix. In the second minute drums start throwing their own hits and flourishes into the mix over the synth track until bass and drums finally emerge and sync up at 1:40 to provide a cool rhythm track beneath the still-streaming synth. At 2:39 more instruments start being thrown into the mix: first a wailing synth, some sample hits, rising synth chords, and, eventually, guitar strums and notes. Very cool experimental song construct. A top three song for me. (9/10)

7. "Tidal Otherness" (5:41) nice weave of multiple space synths and searing background guitar find congealment with the arrival of bass and regular synth arpeggio around 1:15. Guitar continues to screech away back there as the rest of the weavers continue to remain fairly steadfast. Keyboard arpeggio comes forward a bit as guitar frenetics peak and then disappear. They return with a friend--a Richard Wright synth (VCS3?) soloing up front. More synths come and go as the sonic field fills and then fades. Pretty cool soundscape. (8.75/10)

8. "Erp Riff" (1:36) driving rock rhythm track with wah-guitar(s) and, later, synths. (4.25/5)

9. "Descension" (5:01) pensive JAN AKKERMAN-like guitar sound and chord sequence builds into spacey, distorted fullness before settling back and repeating itself. At 1:28 the guitar backs up to perform rhythm duties (with another guitar or two) while VCS3 takes the lead--but only for a short time before giving way to the AKKERMAN-like guitar again. Structured in an A-B-A-C-A-B format, the song proceeds as predicted--but there are some nice blues guitar solos. (8.75/10)

10. "Misty Gliss" (4:33) floating synth notes offer a kind of "Star Trek Theme" motif when, mixed with Steve Hillage GONG floating guitar and then Tangerine Dream percussive synth sequencing, establishes a foundation over which a VANGELIS-like synth solos. Later, the TD sequence becomes the lone foundation for the Gong-floating guitars and space synths to solo simultaneously. (8.75/10)

11. "Dots Thots" (2:49) a precursor to some of the stuff on Jurassic Shift. (4.25/5)

12. "Clock Drops" (2:49) true to its title, this Gamelan-imitational song establishes a minimalist weave that sounds like a clock (or room of clocks). The second half adds another TD-familiar sound and guitar style that will become integral to the entire Ozrics future. (4.25/5)

13. "Five Jam" (6:53) starts out with over a minute of solo heavily effected guitar strumming chords and notes away. Synthetic drums, two basses, and "distant" synth soloing provide backdrop for continued guitar soloing and experimentation. Halfway through, one of the guitarists gets serious: stepping up for some more front-and-center soloing. Nice bass behind. (13/15)

14. "Oddhamshaw" (6:18) from a live recording (cuz of the drum sound)? More raw Ozrics sound. (8.5/10)

Total Time: 59:39

Using some very fundamental song styles to build upon and experiment over, the band displays its own signatory sounds--many of which continue even to today. Just like the Ozrics of today (now operating under Ed Wynne's name) the band likes to make music. 14 songs; 60 minutes was a lot back in the cassette era.

B/four stars; an excellent addition to any prog lover's music collection. The Ozrics at their beginning are very much as they are now, only more raw and less polished.

As such, the earliest tracks here are a little rougher - and because they hail from a time when the group were still feeling out their direction, some of the material here is rather atypical for the Ozrics. Then again, in some respects that diversity is the collection's strength, because it does at least mean it's always full of surprises.

The cassette albums could be rough around the edges - especially the first two - but they represent a part of the band's musical journey any fan will want to hear, and the CD presentations (especially in their remastered forms) do a fine job of teasing out the finer qualities of the material and overcoming the limitations of their original presentation. Serious fans of the group will want this anyway; those who want an instant six-hour trip into their foundational work could do much worse than starting out here.

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.

It still sounds a little rough around the edges - still like the product of an underground festival band, and without the pristine polish that their LPs from Pungent Effulgent would enjoy. However, this does give the release a lot of its charm; the production values are distinct enough from their "proper" albums, and the equipment just slightly older, so it all sounds just a little different from what would come later, but the production values are good enough that the album's origins as a cassette release don't overshadow the music. If you're going to explore this era of the group, this would be an excellent place to start.

No, the Ozrics honed their sound through extensive live gigging on the UK's free festival circuit, and so perhaps the best glimpse of their early sound isn't any of the studio cassette releases, but the sole all-live on, Live Ethereal Cereal. The sound quality isn't perfect, but far better than you would expect for live material recorded from festival soundboards, and the most recent round of remasters has really helped smooth over the imperfections of the tapes to allow this live set to shine.

Between this and Swirly Termination - an abandoned project released without the band's consent by their old label - this probably has the edge when it comes to the two Ozrics studio album releases of 2000.

Fortunately, Spice Doubt doesn't come in that low bitrate quality those of us old enough remember from those times - you get here the high-quality input, not the low-quality output your dial-up connection would have served up had you tried to listen to the original stream. The band opt for a high-energy, fast-paced set, with less of the slow reggae groove we're used to hearing from them and more of the fusion-like technical virtuosity which we've always known they've had, but which could often be overlooked. As a result, Spice Doubt manages to have a somewhat different sound from, say, Live Underslunky (their previous official live release), amply justifying its existence as more than a document of an ahead-of-its-time online experiment.

Live Underslunky captures them right at the height of their powers, capturing material taken from a couple of November dates on the tour for Strangeitude. With great sound, the set takes the listener on a space rock journey which is replete with the Ozrics' signature Gong-goes-reggae sound.