Ozric Tentacles
Erpland

Space-rock, progressive, fusion, psychedelia, world-music, new age...

...or more simply... trip-rock!

Does it exist? And if it doesn't, no problem, I'll coin it for you on the spot: a booming drum, a pasteurized bass, keyboards on a scenic stroll, a guitar between jazz and rock that effortlessly shifts from Page to Metheny to Van Halen.

And then hand percussion, flutes, electronics, ethnic diversions: what isn't there in this music that has its roots in the psychedelia of the sixties and, going through the most hallucinogenic psycho-ambient, ends up landing at today's rave gatherings?

All this is the Ozric Tentacles, an English collective of musicians that was born in the mid-eighties and revolves around the figure of guitarist/keyboardist Ed Wynne: endless concerts, disorienting multimedia, a billion publications under their belt. And every album: a session of lobotomy that systematically reconnects our brain to the beginnings of the journey of emancipation from the kingdom of monkeys.

It's hard to go wrong with the Ozric Tentacles, whose only fault is to always and invariably propose the same album: but in their vast discography, quantity goes hand in hand with quality, and wherever you turn your ears, you'll encounter good work. And you need an Ozric Tentacles album at home, regardless of your personal tastes: let's say, "Jurassic Shift," or "Erpland," two excellent examples of what they've been able to accomplish until today.

"Erpland," released in 1990, is somewhat the sum of their entire career, and like all Ozric Tentacles albums, it is highly recommended for those who want to become Rocky Balboa in one day.

How?

By downing a vial of LSD in one gulp and then running with "Erpland" in your ears... one step after another, heart pumping hydrochloric acid, steam coming out of your nostrils, and so on, towards Infinity, with people on the roadside cheering and urging you on, while the world melts and colors with a thousand vibrant hues.

You can do it.

And if at the end you don't have Stallone's physique, you'll certainly end up with his intellectual quotient.

Clean sounds, synthetic sounds (after all, we are in the nineties): the music of the Ozric Tentacles is a treadmill running under your feet, wearing you out, making you gobble up miles, visit faraway lands, Arabia, India, the Caribbean, fuchsia oceans, pink deserts, emerald beaches, trans-oriental dancers, illusionists, fakirs, Calcutta drug dealers, smiling dolphins, budgies giving you perms, robins punching you, purple pigs raining from the sky... and you keep running, worn out, in the same place.

You haven't moved an inch. (No, the flying monkeys bombing you with rotten apricots and koala heads do not exist, they are only in your head!)

But the Ozrics do not seek easy hallucinations; yes, they are blowhards, but it would be unfair not to acknowledge their commitment, their skill, an uncommon dedication to the cause: they appear to us as Weather Report flirting with Popol Vuh, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Gong, Orb (what year is the first Orb from?) and a thousand other bands.

All of them, without exception, lined up by the fluid and metronomic drumming of Merv Peplar, a real war machine that (one can't understand how he does it, probably the power of drugs) keeps the time for hours and hours, sometimes providing blazing changes of course and sudden accelerations, but never missing a beat.

But the other eight (!!!) members are certainly no less capable; the whole team contributes to generating a swirling, hypnotic, tentacular, hallucinogenic, lysergic atmosphere: the relentless thumping of Roly Wynne’s bass, a sort of compulsive Pastorius/Levin; the exotic whims of John Egan, the mad pied piper (one who spends the entire live performances with his eyes closed, laughing like an idiot, tottering, staggering, occasionally startled by things that probably only he can see!). And then Paul Hankin (percussions), Marcus Carcus (ethnic percussions), Generator John (tambourines), Steve Everett (sampling), Tom Brooks (reggae bubbles), and, not least: the mastermind Ed Wynne, an imaginative guitarist with a baroque flair, a keyboardist with easy ejaculation, as well as an attentive producer and sound detailing maniac.

A highly respectable ensemble capable of crafting a work that, although materializing by magic among the fumes of drugs and improvisation, appears to us incredibly well-crafted and thought out, in its sounds, structures, and melodic interlocks.

A work free of imperfections, sometimes surgical, splendidly produced: 73 minutes of overflowing rhythms, ("Eternal Wheel"), exotic interludes ("Toltec Spring"), cerebral constructions ("Tidal Converge"), scenic ballads ("Sunscape"), enchanted realms ("Mysticum Arabicola"), fantastic mirages ("Crackerblocks"), doors opening wide ("The Throbbe"), dizzying escapes ("Erpland"), Caribbean settings ("Valley of a Thousand Thoughts"), trained snakes ("Snakepit").

The reggae of "Iscence" (the only sung track in Ozric Tentacles' entire career!) eases the tension. And I swear if reggae is to me what sunlight is to Count Dracula, I cannot deny that, after such a tour de force, a track of such caliber (more dub than reggae in truth, but a hazy and visionary dub, very very very far from Jamaica) serves as a true tonic for the spirit and brain.

The ten dreamy minutes of the masterful "A Gift of Wings" are called to close a journey that cannot possibly disappoint anyone sincerely and passionately willing to feed their brain to the dogs.

Only one regret: having seen them live once and being sober.

Don't repeat my mistake!