ALBUM REVIEWS

Ozric Tentacles
ETERNAL WHEEL - THE BEST OF
SNAPPER MUSIC 5th July 2004
@www.vanguard-online.co.uk

 The Ozrics are a phenomenon. When we have a genre called Indie that features records made for and promoted by the major labels, you have to ask yourself - what IS independent? One answer would be the Ozric Tentacles. Underground and grassroots, playing festivals and benefits, making 22 albums without making an impact on the mainstream. From early on they would sell tapes of their music at gigs or through the post. Word of mouth would bring converts. Certainly, posters of the band wouldn't have helped - think archetypal hippy come Swampy in Tibetan gladrags and a woolly pully.

So, how about the music? This is as good a jumping on point as any and has a LOT of music - there's 80 minutes on the main CD, then there is a second bonus CD that's as good as the first. A selection of tracks across the nineties, carrying jamming guitars, eastern-sounding pipes, ragas and swirling synths. The defining sound is the jamming guitars playing space rock, that most English of creations. Space rock ala Hawkwind, ala Gong. Dubby creations sit alonside worldbeat - tablas, stringed instruments, sarangi contribute to the trippy atmosphere. The quintissential hippy instrument - the flute, breathes over the rising and swirling guitars. Patterns of circular motion rise and fade away in the music, which is not about going somewhere, communicating or reaching rock's bathetic catharsis, just about being here and following the path as it appears.

Worth your time.

Ross McGibbon

www.snappermusic.com