Floating seeds (Ozric Tentacles) (LP 3431 - 3437)

Ozric Tentacles  Pungent Effulgent (CD, Dovetail Records, 1989) ***  

Ozric Tentacles   Strangeitude  (CD, Dovetail Records, 1991) ****  

Ozric Tentacles  Curious Corn (CD, Snapper Records, 1997) ***  

Ozric Tentacles  Swirly Termination (CD, Madfish Records, 2000) ***  

Ozric Tentacles  There Is Nothing (CD, Snapper Records, 2000) ***  

Ozric Tentacles  Live Ethereal Cereal (CD, Dovetail Records, 2000) ***  

Ozric Tentacles  Afterswish 1984 - 91 (CD, Snapper Records, 1992) ***  

Genre: Prog rock, Space rock

Places I remember: HMV, Fopp

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Kick 98 (Swirly Termination)

Gear costume: White Rhino Tea (Strangeitude)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I discovered Ozric Tentacles via a sampler CD. Their sound immediately made an impression on me: instrumental prog rock, heavy on the guitar wig outs, swirling keyboards/electronics, groovy bass and driving drums. Fabulous!

The band started out issuing cassettes and grew a live following - they have become serial festival attendees, and their catalogue is full of compilations, as well as live and studio albums.

I started with Strangeitude - their third studio album.  It's a great blend of experimentation, beats, spacey electronics, and sinuous grooves. One listen and I was onboard!

As AllMusic puts it: One look at "Sploosh!" reveals throbbing synthesizers, continually changing water sound effects, heavily processed virtuoso guitar, hypnotic conga beats, and an amazing array of repetitive percussions that lead to a fascinating journey through their complex compositional skills.

From there, I backtracked to their debut album - Pungent Effulgent. the album is a good place to start, as it serves as an excellent introduction to the Ozric's space-reggae-rock-dub music.

At that point I started looking out for more of their albums when visiting HMV in Oxford Street and Fopp in Covent Garden. Living and working in the UK was a fantastic opportunity to travel into London from Essex (Leigh-on-sea) to spend a day in Foyles and these great music outlets. Ozric Tentacle albums are particularly good to put on while marking student work.

Curious Corn and Swirly Termination were paired together in a double CD. Curious Corn was their seventh studio album and continues the cosmic space rock sound admirably. Swirly Termination is a compilation of previously unreleased music. It sounds amazing and is just as good as the official studio albums.

There Is Nothing and Live Ethereal Cereal are early cassettes (both from 1986) that were paired together for a double CD.

There is nothing suffers a little from using processed drums rather than organic ones, and the live one is a compilation of various live dates. This CD is now out of print and hard to find.

Finally, Afterswish is another excellent compilation of those early years. It's a double and after Strangeitude is my go-to Ozric Tentacles album. They are certainly a prolific band with founder and guitarist Ed Wynne still leading the line. Remarkable.

Where do they all belong? I'll have to wait for a return to the UK to find more of their albums. No duds!