STEPS ACROSS THE CORTEX

O-Head is the name of electronica and space rock project from Somerset, UK-based David Hendry. This is the same area that brought us Ozric Tentacles, before late 2008 when they decided and move to Colorado. There is definitely two different phases in O-Head career, the early stuff which is electronica (1998 to 2005) and the space rock phase (2008 to present, at least until 2012 when Visitor was released, and since that time nothing new released, so far). Steps Across the Cortex was the final of just two albums in this early electronica phase, and seemed to be the final release on Centaur Discs, although Dave Hendy had since reissued it (with a different cover), so if you're wondering why your copy has a different cover, it's a reissue, as the cover posted here is the Centaur original. Basically this CD has one foot in '90s techno and the other foot in '70s Berlin School electronic music, so this particular release would fit more comfortably in the Progressive Electronic section, than Psychedelic/Space Rock (but it's totally understandable why O-Head is under the Psychedelic/Spacy Rock category, due to the releases starting with Gaia's Garden, which is closer to Ozric territory). So instead of reference to Ozric Tentacles here, Tangerine Dream is a good reference,, perhaps a bit of Jean Michel Jarre without the Eminent 310 and '90s type of techno beats, but unlike real techno it's difficult to dance to this as there's plenty of moments without any beats and sticking to more ambient moments. "Oracle Eye" does point towards the more Ozric-like direction of later releases as this piece bears more than a passing resemblance to "Sploosh!" off Ozrics' 1991 release Strangeitude. It has that same pulsing bass rhythm. Sampled Mellotron is used from time to time, which I really like (at least Dave Hendry's honest that he never used a real Mellotron, as no Mellotron is mentioned in the gear listings on the CD - he probably couldn't afford a real Mellotron or didn't want to hassle with the mechanics of one). The music is stuffed with nice use of digital and analog modeling synths. It's strange that this album was released in 2005, this could have been easily released sometime in the mid 1990s. He even gets some guitar playing from Simon Williams of Mandragora.

This is a nice album to have for those looking for spacy electronic music.