Ozric Tentacles - Arborescence

[Guest Astro Cortex]

Ozric Tentacles - Arborescence (1994 Dovetail Records)

 

 

 

1. 05:20 Astro Cortex

2. 09:41 Yog-Bar-Og

3. 04:52 Arborescence

4. 05:02 Al-Salooq

5. 05:14 Dance of the Loomi

6. 05:58 Myriapod

7. 06:38 There's a Planet Here

8. 06:25 Shima Koto

 

 

There's the common opinion that, since all the Ozrics albums are more or less in the same style and a single album already covers a wide range of their musical spectrum, you don't need to own more than one Ozric Tentacles album. I don't quite agree to that. I need all of them . You can call it an addiction if you want, I just never get tired of the Ozric sound. One of their best albums ever IMO is Arborescence. It is their last one with Joie and Merv in the line-up BTW.

 

It's impossible to keep still any longer than five seconds after having pressed the play button, as we get straight into business with Astro Cortex (damn I love that title ). It's sort of crazy they put this track at the beginning, as the guys really go ballistic here with their warped synth effects and frenetic guitar riffs. But the real bomb on this album has to be Yog-Bar-Og, wow, what a stunning experience this is! It's what I'd call a "killer" Ozric tune, for sure one of my top 5 tracks by the band. Strong, uplifting and filled with utterly psychedelic riffs and effects. The exact 2nd minute of it immediately made me think of......you guessed it, Simon Posford! As many of us might know he was highly influenced by the Ozrics, but that section sounds so much like Simon that one might almost believe he just listened to Yog-Bar-Og and thought "yeah, these are exactly the sounds I need to recreate for a psychedelic effect in my own music." Oh, and did I mention how it rocks? Yeah, that track is so much fun I can hardly stop reviewing it . After those two energetic tunes it's time to chill out a bit, with the magical ambient track Arborescence. Its enchanting main synth line is accompanied by chirping birds, John's flute playing of course and also a nice guitar riff near the end. Al-Salooq is more upbeat again and contains quite a cheerful middle-eastern melody in its first part, before the guitar comes in. And it's a quite funky track too, very dancable, though it slows down near the end. Very good one. Next follows my other favourite on the album, the light, floating Dance of the Loomi. The soft 4/4 kickdrum and the way the guitar is played make it almost soud like trance, but very mellow and chilled, without the slightest sharp sound. This track feels like a real summer breze, it's just bloody excellent! Myriapod is more in their classic space rock style, a very guitar dominated piece and very good too. On There's a Planet Here it gets very dubby and relaxed, this track has really an outstanding bassline and, apart from all sorts of strange and trippy background effects, we can hear some truly delicious tribal percussion on this one. The album ends with the driving and melodic Shima Koto, which has a bit of a Japanese vibe. One could have expected a more chilled-out track at the end but then again, there hasn't been much of an ambient intro either .

 

What can I say, get this stunning piece of work in any case. It's worth it alone for tracks 2 and 5. There's no other music out there that grabbed me as much as the Ozrics', and Arborescence is no exception