Album: Ozric Tentacles - Space for the Earth | reviews, news & interviews
Album: Ozric Tentacles - Space for the Earth
Album: Ozric Tentacles - Space for the Earth
The post-rave Gong are back but the song remains much the same
Space for the Earth is Ozric Tentacles’ 21st studio album since coming together at the 1983 Stonehenge Free Festival and their first since 2015’s Technicians of the Sacred.
Ambient but trancey grooves dominate Space for the Earth throughout. From the uplifting “Stripey Clouds” to the bubbling psychedelia of “Blooperdome” and “Humboldt Currant” with its loops and samples of non-western world music, these instrumental grooves lay out their stall as the music of choice for “head shops” around the country for the foreseeable future. Indeed, “Popscape” has something of a techno feel about it with proggy flavours and a jazzy wash, while the title track lays down System 7-type trippiness with Champigon’s flute floating around it. It really is like stepping back to the last time that hippies got anywhere close to the cultural zeitgeist.
Ozric Tentacles still inhabit that part of the sonic landscape where Gong rub shoulders with Jean-Michel Jarre. A place that is forever part of the early 1990s Club Dog/crustie raver scene, where trippy psychedelic dance music and ambient space rock grooves were enhanced by the pungent aroma of the strongest weed and plenty of other brain-shakers. Thirty years ago, it was a fun place to visit, but Space for the Earth sounds more like spaced-out background nostalgia than an engine for bacchanal excess.
Comments
Oh Kay, but on musical
Great to see the Ozrics back