Ozric Tentacles - Tantric Obstacles [140gm]

Double vinyl LP pressing. One of the most influential bands to emerge from the UK's festival scene, the Ozrics layer ambient & ethereal landscapes with freeform dub trips, incredible rave grooves & psychedelic progressive rock.

It's an open exploration of music & the soul. A raggle-taggle, unpretentious assortment of punk-infused, dreadlocked hippies, since 1983 the Ozric Tentacles wove psychedelic audio-tapestries that captured the almost dangerous musical diversity of the free festival scene, blending acid rock with dub, reggae, ethnic world music & electronic, jazzy experimentation.

This was the soundtrack to the herb-fragranced, alternative lifestyle that wound it's way around country lanes looking for a place to set up & party, away from the psychoses of corporate life. Tantric Obstacles was released in 1985 on cassette only following in the footsteps of their debut Erpsongs.

The album contains tracks that are still firm live favorites - the energetic guitar space-rocker "Sniffing Dog" & the more complex "Og-Ha-Be", which kicks off the album with the trademark Ozrics sound - a funky riff that gradually builds & recedes & builds again until it eventually explodes upon a scintillating pinnacle of space guitar. "Music to Gargle At" is almost an early version of the '91 'Strangetitude' single "Sploosh!"; with it's water samples, electronic beats & plug hole noises. "Trees Of Eternity" is clearly influenced by Steve Hillage, whilst "Oddhamshaw Style" & "Sorry Style" date the tape with the kind of classic dub that could be heard drifting across the main drag of any festival site from a ramshackle sound system in the early part of the '80's.