THE YUMYUM TREE

This was my first experience with Ozric Tentacles. I picked it up because I saw that it was a new album released this year (this being my first year really being into prog, I'm trying to get a vast grasp of the current landscape along with the classics), and that these guys were associated with "Space Rock", a genre that I have heard little of but enjoyed what I have.

Reading about this album, I became aware that their sound would be more electronic then other music I had heard of the genre, or even listened to on a regular basis. As far as I was concerned, this was fine.

But my first listen through the album, I couldn't quite get into it at all. It had interesting moments, but it sounded (to my untrained ear) like techno. Techno is a genre that, while I have nothing against philosophically, I have not encountered much that I enjoyed. I was actually initially excited, thinking, "This will be good! All the neat sounds of techno without the cliche, repetitiveness of the all the dancey techno I've head before!"

Given that my initial reaction was lukewarm, I knew that I probably wouldn't like the album. But I gave it a few more tries. After all, it was a musical landscape that I was not familiar with, and I felt that I might be able to enjoy the music more after I grew accustomed to it.

But try as I might, I just could not pierce this music. I tried listening to it with headphones, with my nice stereo speakers, louder, quieter, and I couldn't get much of an emotional reaction from this music.

It just seemed as though the music lacked much feeling or emotion. Some songs have interesting starts, and others had neat sounds or beginnings, but for the most part, they reach a point where the music is basically synth sounds overlayed on top of bass and drum beats. It works but it's not interesting. It doesn't engage. It sits mostly in the background, and in that sense, it works well as background music. Yet even for background music, I tend to find myself thinking, "Oh, I should put some music on ... oh yeah, I have Ozric Tentacles on."

I really tried to like this music. It has everything that one could want for a weird musical experience ... a crazy band name, an eclectic album name, weird album art. The only thing that is lacking in this package is the music itself.

This album isn't without it's high points. Nakuro and San Pedro an excellent example of 'spacey' music, and Magick Valley was the track that gave me the most energy. But neither of these tracks are particularly amazing, and other than that, the album doesn't have a whole lot to recommend it.