LIVE ETHEREAL CEREAL

Much maligned live OZRICS album, I think the only reason for that criticism is the sound quality, which isn't the best, luckily it isn't that "recorded off someone's home cassette recorder" quality. I have no problems hearing all the instruments being played. You also have to bear in mind, in 1985 and '86, when "Live Ethereal Cereal" was recorded, the band still had no recording contract with a record label, and they already had two cassettes under their belt, with "Tantric Obstacles" and "Erpsongs" that they produced and released themselves. Of course, being an unsigned band at that time, they didn't have the benefit of top quality digital equipment like a band at that time who was recording for an actual record label.

"Live Ethereal Cereal" consists of performances from four separate shows in England, three of them in Reading (September and December 1985, and February 1986) and one in Glastonbury (October 1985). Given the circumstances, this is a truly amazing and underrated live album. All but two cuts are actually stuff found nowhere else! You get to hear early OZRICS performing some rather raw and exciting stuff, like "Erpriff", "Tentacular Explosion", and one of my favorites, "Obstacular Explosion". Two songs from their then-current cassette releases, "Tantric Obstacles" and "Erpsongs" were represented by "Og-Ha-Be" and "Dots Thots", both of them arranged a bit differently from the originals, but with the familiar themes still intact. All the wonderful OZRICS stuff can be already found here: totally wild guitar from Ed Wynne, with lots of great spacy synths from both Joie Hinton and Tom Brookes. Roly Wynne (Ed's brother, sadly now deceased) handled the bass, and Tig (aka Nick Van Gelder) handled the drums. If you bear in mind the technical limitations the band had at the time in the process of recording a live album cassette, you got yourself some amazing performances. Luckily they paired this album with There is Nothing (perhaps their best cassette-era release, in my book, although many say "Sliding Gliding Worlds") as a 2-for-1 CD set (prior to that, sold separately on CD by Dovetail, and before that, part of the "Vitamin Enhanced Box Set"). Great stuff, if you don't mind the sound quality!

My rating: 4 1/2 stars