Miler72 Might as well review the very first Ozric CD I ever bought, this was in 1997, I saw this one, as well as Jurassic Shift, both the American pressings on IRS, and I never regretted it! I was just so blown away to see a 1990s band of this quality. This one is often though of in a lesser light compared to Jurassic Shift, but in my opinion, it's one of their best! They take on a bit more guitar-oriented approach this time around, but Joie Hinton (and Ed Wynne) still provides some nice spacy synths to go with it, on top of Ed's over-the-top guitar playing. "Astro Cortex" is Ozrics at your most typical, heavy on guitar with spacy synths to go with it. The guitar playing borders on heavy metal. "Yog-Bar-Og" is a real interesting piece where it goes through several changes, including a really nice spacy synth solo. The title track has a real nice ambient feel it with, while "Al-Salooq", unsurprisingly has a Middle Easter feel to it. "Dance of the Loomi" has a more techno feel to it, a nice spacy synth rhythm to it, while "Myriapod" has more of that rocking Ozric feel. "There's a Planet Here" is another ambient piece where Zia Geelani gives some nice bass lines to go with it, while "Shima Koto" has more of a Japanese influence. I have often felt Ozrics make perfect nighttime listening, and they often come up with this mystical vibe I so love, so perfect at night. Thanks to this, and Jurassic Shift, it was no surprise that I dug deeper into the Ozrics catalog, and waiting for new releases when they came my way. I know many people believe the Ozrics have played the same song for 30 years now, but for me, they really delighted me with some of the finest space rock ever. Arborescence comes highly recommended.

J-Man With their origins dating back to the early eighties, England's Ozric Tentacles have garnered a reputation as one of progressive rock's most unique psychedelic acts. Their one-of-a-kind mix of trippy psychedelic aesthetics, electronic instrumentation, fusion-inspired compositions, and spaced-out atmospheres has also earned them a fairly large group of followers and a relevant place in the modern progressive scene. Like them or not, Ozric Tentacles are an unignorable force in the modern experimental music world, and Paper Monkeys further secures their spot as a band worthy of your attention. Though I've only sporadically listened to previous Ozric Tentacles albums, I like what I hear on Paper Monkeys and it will only be a matter of time before I more thoroughly investigate their music.

On Paper Monkeys you'll find an upbeat, psychedelic, electronic-fused brand of instrumental space rock that's pretty similar to what the band did on 2009's The Yumyum Tree. The music here is characterized by spacey synth tones, funky basslines, jazzy drumming, and lots of quirky psychedelic aesthetics. For anyone even mildly acquainted with Ozric Tentacles (especially their more recent efforts), Paper Monkeys shouldn't come as a terrible shock. What we have here is the band doing what they do best - delivering music that's atmospheric and soothing, yet still complex and fun to listen to. All of the tunes here are pretty solid, with songs like "Knurl" (I love the sitar on this track), "Lost in the Sky", the title track, and "Will of the Wisps" standing out as highlights. The musicianship is seldom too demanding, but it's always professional and well-played. Ed Wynne's fretwork is especially impressive - that man simply knows how to play with soul and spot-on precision, and that's exactly what I look for from a great guitarist. The production took a little while for me to get used to on Paper Monkeys, but the somewhat electronic sound did eventually grow on me to the point where I consider this a perfect fit for the compositions on this album.

Paper Monkeys may not be a drop-dead gorgeous masterpiece, but it's a very solid observation to add to Ozric Tentacles' canon. I really have had a pleasure experiencing this album, and even though it occasionally fades into background music, I still have a difficult time calling Paper Monkeys anything less than a successful effort. I'd say Paper Monkeys is well deserving of a solid 3.5 stars, as well as a warm recommendation. Fans of the band, as well as psychedelic rock in general, will definitely want to put this one on their wishlists.

js 70s Space Rock and 90s Ambient Techno are two musical styles that have a lot in common. On the CD "Stragetude", Ozric Tentacles expertly combine the two and come up with a sum greater than the parts. Think Clearlight jamming with The Orb, only better. Techno has always been an influence on the Ozrics, but it becomes more pronounced on this album. By the time this CD came out drummer Merv Pepler and keyboardist Joie Hinton were wanting to leave the band so they could work full-time on their trance-techno project Eat Static, and it really shows. At this point both the Ozrics and Eat Static share a lot of the same keyboard sounds, and in fact there are a couple of tunes on "Strangetude" that wouldn't sound out of place on an Eat Static album. After leaving the Ozrics, Merv and Joie's new techno project would go on to be one of the freshest new sounds in a genre often given over to dull cliche.

"Strangetude" also shows the band moving ahead in their mixing technique. The production on this CD is incredible, guitar solos come out of the background only to be swallowed up by waves of synthesizers and electronic sounds. This is psychedelia at its best, the soundscape is constantly shifting making repeat listenings always enjoyable. Although the Ozrics are usually kind of jazzy in a fusion kind of way, there are couple songs on here that really rock in a heavy chugga-chugga Hawkwind kind of way. They also show a lot of skills with dub reggae on "Space Between Your Eyes". Usually rock bands sound so clumsy trying to play Jamaican rhythms, but these guys sound natural playing it their way. Overall, this is a very pleasant modern jam band record with touches of fusion, dub, techno and psychedelic rock all rolled into one.

M.Neumann To paraphrase an old Japanese proverb: You are a fool if you do not own an Ozric Tentacles album...but you are a worse fool if you own two.

Well, more fool me is all I can say, and I'm sure a lot of likeminded fans would agree. It's true that most Ozric albums are more or less interchangeable, each one shuffling the same combination of vigorous cosmic ragas and throbbing space-dub soundscapes. But the formula allows plenty of room for invention, and after almost a quarter-century (and counting) it can still be a fresh and invigorating experience.

The final Ozric album of the last Millennium is fairly representative, despite the lingering cloud of mystery around it. Was the album really a haphazard compilation of incomplete older recordings, released without the band's permission? The Snapper Music CD lists no production credits, and includes no details about the musicians or instrumentation. The band itself apparently never promoted the finished product, and doesn't acknowledge the CD on their official web site.

Too bad, because it contains some quintessential space jams, beginning with the punchy opener "Steep" (one of the band's strongest and yet most economical rockers) and continuing to the somewhat meandering but often compelling 12-minute cosmic improvisation of "Voy Mandala". Other highlights include the pulse-pounding adrenalin rush of "Kick 98" (a dynamic update of "Kick Muck", from their 1990 debut LP "Pungent Effulgent"), and what may be the ultimate Ozric Tentacles trip, the aptly titled "Space Out": a minor classic of Eastern influenced guitar and synth psychedelia.

The album is only 45-minutes long, a bit stingy for digital music. And the lack of any official endorsement reduces it to a dwarf star in the larger Ozric universe. But if nothing else it's certainly a worthwhile primer for newcomers, and a windfall to all those dedicated fools who wouldn't ever think to stop at a single album.

M.Neumann The prolific space rockers of Ozric Tentacles have enjoyed a remarkably consistent (maybe too consistent) musical career since their humble underground origins in the mid-1980s. From the beginning the band has stuck to what certainly turned out to be a durable formula, extending the psychedelic legacy of Hawkwind and Steve Hillage with a kick of adrenalin strong enough to punch a hole in your headphones (and straight through the center of your head).

A generous cross-section of those early recordings is compiled here on a two-disc CD sampler drawn from the band's home-made and self-distributed cassette tapes, made between 1985 and 1989. The music here predates the inevitable boost in publicity that would follow the growth of the World Wide Web over the next decade, but anyone with even the smallest exposure to the Ozrics will know what to expect: dynamic instrumental jams in a Middle or Far Eastern mode, alternating with blissful techno-trance interludes and echo-heavy dub workouts.

The production may lack the digital polish of their later studio albums, but the energy and invention (and the esoteric humor: check out some of the nonsensical track titles) is already well developed. Without a doubt, this was (and still is) a group of motivated hippies: combining all the cosmetic earmarks of a counterculture aesthetic (eye-popping mandala artwork; colorful thrift-shop wardrobe) with a dedication to musical expression out of step with the strictly mercantile fashions of popular culture in the 1980s.

The original cassettes have since been re-issued in digital form, as both a six-pack box set and on separate discs (with two full cassettes on each CD). But honestly, this twin-disc compilation works just as well, and maybe better, than the unexpurgated tapes, summing up the formative era of the Ozrics in one concise and comprehensive package.