Posts tagged Ozric Tentacles

(Review from progarchives.com)

Ozric Tentacles’ umpteenth album is yet another faithful album that the fans can buy safely as it fits the usual safety zone. Coming with a superbly drawn cartoon fantasy artwork, YumYum Tree is just what the doctor ordered if you’re in the mood for spacey twirly travels in the aural stratosphere. Their music is never offensive, often very danceable, always happy/joyous, with traces of reggae, heavenly flutes; Gong-like space twirls.

The opening track starts things off great, serving as a sort of encapsulation of the Ozric’s music in one crisp package. The styles morph and blend throughout, and the listener will doubtless find themselves being energized by Ed Wynne’s guitar only to be submerssed in an airy cloud of synth and soundscape. The title track’s composition is especially strong, sustaining its length with creative transitions and energy. “YumYum Tree” rocks, grooves, drifts, splooshes, meditates, spirals all at once, and is satisfying with everything it attempts.

Ozric fans will be immediately satisfied, and new comers will doubtless enjoy the sonic journey offered by this release.

Line-up:
- Ed Wynne / guitars, synthesizers, programming
- Brandi Wynne / keyboards, airy areas
- Vinny Shillito / bass
- Roy / drums
with
- Joie Hinton / synthesizers (4, 8)
- Merv Pepler / percussion (4, 8)
- Dom / darbuka (6)

Track List:
01. Magick Valley – 6:42
02. Oddweird – 6:14
03. Mooncalf – 7:41
04. Oolong Oolong – 5:54
05. YumYum Tree – 9:07
06. Plant Music – 5:28
07. Nakuru – 5:39
08. San Pedro – 6:21

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(Review from progarchives.com)

For someone familiar with the history of this band, a glance at the tracklist and the lineup of the Sunrise Festival performance, reveals a surprising fact that the songs what’s played belong to a certain period of the band – a legendary period when albums like ‘Erpland’ or ‘Pungent Effulgent’ were born… And what a surprise again, the lineup contains two key creative members of that period, Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton. They both left the band in the mid 90s which resulted a considerable change of the style and sound of the band that time. While Pepler appeared in some songs of the recent Ozric Tentacles albums, now we have Hinton back too.

The result is mindblowing to say the least. Mixing is great, drums sound fantastic and there’s a terrific bass playing through all the performance. And Ed’s guitar… honestly it really sounds like if we were in the 80s… exceptional! The only miss is the absence of the usual flutist which could make the sound richer – on the contrary, without the flute the performance is even more like the way the band sounded in the mid 80s: mixture of long heavy solos in the unique style of Ed Wynne along with those weird psychedelic keyboard effects the way that can be heard only on early bootlegs.

The performance starts with a nice intro track named from the artist who usually creates the cover art for the albums. The essential part of this release comes right next : probably this is one of the best live performance ever of O-I, Vita Voom and Jurassic Shift. Sunrise Jam is not the usual jam of early songs Ozric Tentacles used to play in their past gigs. It sounds more like the last studio album, especially like the song ‘Spacebase’ with some “Waterfall Cities” like synth loops here and there.

All of the show is more or less in the same high quality. There’s even a rare live render of ‘Snakepit’ thrown in as a bonus.

Line-up:
- Ed Wynne / guitar, keyboards
- Merv Pepler / drums
- Brandi Wynne / bass
- Joie Hinton / synthesizers

Track List:
01. … Blimey! – 3:20
02. 0-1 – 3:46
03. Vita Voom – 4:40
04. Jurassic Shift – 13:00
05. Sunrise Jam – 8:34
06. Erpland – 6:14
07. Snakepit – 4:46
08. Eternal Wheel – 10:31
09. White Rhino Tea – 6:44
10. Tidal Convergence – 10:21

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(Review from allmusic)

Ozric Tentacles carries its mainly instrumental version of the Gong experience forward to new heights with 1994′s Arborescence. Instrumental prowess abounds. Ed Wynne’s guitar can best be described with two adjectives: swirling and Hillage-esque. Drummer Merv and bassist Zia lay down odd-meter rhythms with confidence and energy, and the way they mutate some of these long grooves is one of the most entertaining things about this record.

In fact, this is one of the things that Ozric Tentacles does best in general: creating legitimate, memorable song structures out of very little purely melodic material. On only a few occasions on Arborescence does the band provide the listener with some sort of melodic hook, with one notable occasion being the Arabic-themed melody to “Al-Salooq”. Rather, they prefer to insinuate grooves under your skin while guitars, flutes, and synthesizers dance gleefully around the rhythms. It is ambient music crossbred with alien dance music, and it is marvelous stuff.

Spicy, evocative, and hypnotic, Arborescence is an unpredictably joyous record.

Line-up:
- Ed Wynne / guitar, synth, weirdness
- Joie Hinton / synth, strangness
- John Egan / flutes, ghasps
- Merv Pepler / drums, percussion, postulations
- Zia Geelani / bass, rainmaker

Track List:
1. Astro Cortex (5:20)
2. Yog-Bar-Og (9:40)
3. Arboresence (4:53)
4. Al-Salooq (5:03)
5. Dance of the Loomi (5:14)
6. Myriapod (5:59)
7. There’s a Planet Here (6:39)
8. Shima Koto (6:25)

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(Review from allmusic, guitar9.com)

With a perfectly blended fusion of numerous musical styles and ideas, the Ozrics elevate consciousness and open the spaces on Erpland. The infusion of reggae, dub, and Middle Eastern elements help to make this particular set a true joy to experience — it’s hard not to bliss out while this is playing.

Opening with a re-recorded version of “Eternal Wheel” from the “There Is Nothing” album, Erpland drifts onward through a melange of blistering space rock, reggae infused smoking tunes and exotic psychedelic styles, from the eerie “Toltec Spring” and rolling, surging “Tidal Convergence” through to the hypnotic persistence of “The Throbbe”. It is, however, the mixing of exotic Asian and Middle Eastern music that makes the Ozrics stand out from the ordinary space rock crowd. The blending of acoustic and electric instruments with spiralling space rock guitar, cross polyrhythmic percussion and bubbling synths on tracks like “Sunscape”, “Mysticum Arabicola” and “A Gift Of Wings” gives Erpland a delicately perfumed diversity.

Ozric Tentacles have developed an impressive following during their existence, defying every attempt to pigeonhole them as one thing or another — the best approach is simply to abandon all categories and go with the flow.

Line-up:
- Ed Wynne / guitar, synthesizer
- Roly Wynne / bass
- John Egan / flute, voice
- Paul Hankin / percussion
- Merv Pepler / drums
- Joe Hinton / synthesizer, sampling
with
- Marcus Ethnic / percussion
- Generator John / tea & tambourine
- Steve Everett / sampling
- Tom Brooks / Reggae Bubbles

Track List:
01. Eternal Wheel (8:20)
02. Toltec Spring (3:03)
03. Tidal Convergence (7:14)
04. Sunscape (4:02)
05. Mysticum Arabicola (9:14)
06. Cracker Blocks (5:40)
07. The Throbbe (6:21)
08. Erpland (5:32)
09. Valley of a Thousand Thoughts (6:32)
10. Snakepit (3:17)
11. Iscence (4:37)
12. A Gift of Wings (9:46)

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(Review from gnosis2000.net, progarchives.com)

The Ozrics are masters of the hypnotic groove, finding that seemingly endless psychedelic guitar and synth riff, a repetitive – nearly trance-like structure, and then exploring all of its possibilities to some sort of conclusion. The writing isn’t particularly flashy, certainly not complex, nor does it have many of the traditional progressive traits. But the music, embellished by plenty of synth dweedling and strong rhythm patterns, is nonetheless powerful, and does take the listener somewhere special if the mind is open and the spirit free.

Easily comparable to the Gong space-era stuff, “Jurassic Shift” however has more crystal clear textures with ultra modern keyboards. The drums and bass are never bland nor repetitive; they are very elaborated and clearly contribute to enhance this extremely complex music. There are many Middle Eastern music influences, so that the ultra modern textures constantly flirt with the more traditional music, mostly produced with the help of advanced keyboards technology and exotic percussions. The album contains peaceful and relaxing bits including delicate flutes. One clearly finds a little Frank Zappa’s influence of the 80′s, especially on the guitar and drums styles, like in many bits of the tracks “Jurassic shift”, “Pteranodon” and “Vita Voom”.

The mind melting keyboards, the Middle Eastern influences, the hyper drive guitar riffs…its all here for you to throw yourself into.

Line-up:
- Ed Wynne / guitar, koto, keyboards, samples, atmospheres
- Joie Hinton / keyboards, samples, atmospheres
- Merv Pepler / drums, ethnic percussion, babble
- John Egan / flute, babble
- Roly Wynne / bass
- Zia Geelani / bass
- Generator John / tambourine
- Marcus Ethnic / percussion

Track List:
01. Sun Hair (5:43)
02. Stretchy (6:51)
03. Feng Shui (10:24)
04. Half Light in Thillai (5:35)
05. Jurassic Shift (11:05)
06. Petranodon (5:40)
07. Train Oasis (2:45)
08. Vita Voom (4:48)

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(Review from progarchives.com)

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.

Line-up:
- Ed Wynne / guitar, synthesizer
- Joie Hinton / synts, sampling
- Roly Wynne / bass
- Merv Pepler / drums
- Steve Everett / keyboards
- Paul Hankin / percussion
- Marcus “Carcus” / percussion
- John Egan / flute

Track List:
01. Yaboop (5:29)
02. Soda Water (4:10)
03. The Code for Chickendon (4:59)
04. Guzzard (2:05)
05. The Dusty Pouch (4:22)
06. Sliding and Gliding (4:54)
07. Kick Muck (5:30)
08. It’s a Hup Ho World (6:42)
09. Atmospheric Underslunky (3:33)
10. (Omnidirectional) Bhadra (2:58)
11. Fetch Me the Pongmaster (6:12)
12. Mae Hong Song (3:19)
13. White Rhino Tea (4:05)
14. Loaf Jaw (1:11)
15. The Green Island (3:04)

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(Review from progarchives.com)

This was their final album to feature Tig (Nick van Gelder) who later spent a short time with Jamiroquai (although not on the album that featured that hit with the dorky video, “Virtual Insanity”). This is truly Ozrics on their way to more great things to come. The album opens up with “The Sacred Turf”, an intense jam that the band often finds themselves doing on many of their albums, this is pretty typical Ozrics. You have an original of “O-I” which was later re-recorded for “Pungent Effulgent”. Sticks pretty much the same, with a different solo. “Jabular” is one of their more techno-like pieces, but I mean more in an ’80s fashion, not ’90s, like often heard on the albums they did when Rad and Seaweed were in the band (like Curious Corn, Waterfall Cities, and The Hidden Step). “Staring at the Moon” is one of the three reggae type pieces found on this album. “Lull Your Skull” is an interesting one, with some great synth work, and Roly giving us an odd combination of fretless and slap-bass work. As a matter of fact, I feel Roly gives us his best bass work here, showing his abilities on fretless, as well as the standard bass using the slap-bass technique, something he didn’t seem to do on other albums. “Crap Nebula” and “Kola B’Pep”, once again, are more reggae pieces, while “Thrashing Breath Texture” is a more thrashing piece. Not all the pieces on this album work. For example, the original version of “The Eternal Wheel”. It was vastly improved on “Erpland” with actual guitars and drums, this one is little more than a drum machine experiment that seems to little for me, and it’s almost completely unrecognizable. The album closes with the wonderful title track, a cool ambient experiment with ethnic influences (and despite the ethnic influences, just to let you know that John hadn’t even joined the band yet). With the exception of “The Eternal Wheel”, another great Ozric albums, in my book.

Line-up:
- Ed Wynne / guitar, synthesizer
- Joie Hinton / synthesizer, sampling
- Tom Brooks / synthesizers
- Roly Wynne / bass
- Tig (Nick van Gelder) / drums
- Paul Hankin / percussion

Track List:
01. The Sacred Turf (3:14)
02. O-I (4:42)
03. Jabular (3:53)
04. Staring at the Moon (4:52)
05. Airy Area (3:44)
06. Travelling the Great Circle (4:05)
07. Imhotep (12:03)
08. Thrashing Breath Texture (3:31)
09. Crab Nebula (5:39)
10. Lull Your Skull (3:01)
11. Invisible Carpet (5:47)
12. The Eternal Wheel (9:53)
13. Kola B’Pep (6:36)
14. There is Nothing (1:19)

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(Review from progarchives.com)

It’s hard to believe what a different world Ozric Tentacles was back in 1985. Flutist John Egan was not even in the band yet. Future members, such as drummer Rad were barely in their teens at that time (and Rad replacement, Schoo aka Stuart Fisher was around 10 years old then). A future member of Jamiroquai by the name of Nick Van Gelder (Tig) was the drummer. They had two keyboardists, one being Joie Hinton (who stayed with the band until 1994), and Tom Brookes (who left not too long after this album, only to reappear as a guest on “Erpland”), and guitarist Ed Wynne’s brother Roly was the bassist. Also the band was basically in their infancy and released their second cassette, “Tantric Obstacles” in 1985, the same year as “Erpsongs”. Quite an accompilshment, since each cassette at that time equaled to a double LP’s worth of material. This isn’t some cassette released on some label, this was a band doing all by themselves, bought a batch of 90 minute blank tapes, get someone by the name of Blim to do the cover artwork, and photocopy all this stuff. Apparently there was some more fancy artwork for the cassette that never made it to the Dovetail CD reissue (or the more recent CD reissue on Snapper/Recall that also packaged “Erpsongs”). During this time, the band totally forgot to write down song titles, so the song titles you know from these early cassette releases came through the Dovetail reissue (that were sold either as part of the “Vitamin Enhanced” box set or separately, or the songs that were lucky to make it prior on their 1991 compilation “Afterswish”).

The music is a notch above “Erpsongs”. For one thing, the band seemed to be able to correct their mistakes. Still they’re a bit inexperienced with the mixing, so often the drums end up too loud and the bass is a bit buried. The music has improved as well. Songs such as “Shards of Ice”, “Sniffing Dog”, “Atmosphear”, “Ullular Gate” and “Trees of Eternity” prove. Plenty of VCS-3 like synth bubbles and tons of great analog synth sounds (which is a bit odd given this was the ever digitized year known as 1985 where everyone else was toying with Yamaha DX-7s and similar stuff), plus Ed’s tradmark wild guitar. You’ll notice a mostly lack of an ethnic sound, just one excursion in to reggae with “Sorry Style”, but you won’t find any Asian or Middle Eastern styles here (probably because John was not present).

Though stuffed with great material, this is basically a historical item and might not be the best place to start for newcomers, but it’s still very worthwhile.

Line-up:
- Ed Wynne / guitar
- Joie Hinton / synthesizers
- Tom Brooks / synthesizers
- Roly Wynne / bass
- Tig (Nick van Gelder) / drums
- Paul Hankin / percussion

Track List:
01. Og-Ha-Be (4:42)
02. Shards of Ice (3:56)
03. Sniffing Dog (6:33)
04. Music to Gargle At (3:30)
05. Ethereal Cereal (2:15)
06. Atmosphear (4:32)
07. Ullular Gate (4:27)
08. Tentacles of Erpmind (0:39)
09. Trees of Eternity (7:26)
10. Mescalito (4:04)
11. Odhamshaw Style (1:53)
12. Become the Otter (5:00)
13. Gnuthlia (5:26)
14. Sorry Style (3:46)
15. The Aum Shuffle (3:06)

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