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OZRIC TENTACLES Waterfall Cities ENGLAND'S PREMIER PSYCHEDELIC-TRANCE-ROCK JAM: BAND Ozric Tentacles are, simply put, legends of the UK underground. One of the most influential bands to emerge from the UK's festival scene, the Ozrics layer ambient and ethereal landscapes with freeform dub trips, incredible rave grooves and psychedelic progressive rock. It's an open exploration of music and the soul. In their 17 years, the Ozrics have experienced the vicissitudes of the rock and roll life. The band has flourished through a number of line-up changes, spawned several side projects (including Eat Static and Nodes Ictus), created their own record label (Stretchy), put out close to 20 albums, scored a hit record, and sold close to one million albums world-wide. And yet, the basic motivation behind the band's existence has never wavered. It was a campfire at the Stonehenge free festival's 1982 incarnation that witnessed the birth of Ozric Tentacles. Brother's Ed and Roly Wynne, Nick 'Tig Van Gelder and Gavin Griffiths were four instrument-laden troubadours meandering through the Salisbury night, until they reached the hearth of Joie Hinton. From that very first jam session, a musical compatibility was evoked that has since been a trademark of the Ozric Tentacles. It's a signature blend of hippy aesthetics and raver electronics with spiralling guitars, textured waves of keyboard and midi samplers, and supergroovy bass and drum rhythms. The Ozrics swiftly claimed their place as a staple of the UK's burgeoning festival scene, and are now credited as one of the influential musical linchpins of the scene's re-emergence. Throughout the early 1990's, constant touring of the UK helped The Ozric Tentacles to build a tremendous national fanbase on a grass roots level. With the band's 1993 release "Jurassic Shift," which debuted at #11 on the British pop chart and climbed into the Top 10 in the National Album Charts, the Ozrics eventually won over the adulation of mainstream press, and found itself heralded in publications such as NME and Melody Maker. It was, and still is, an astonishing accomplishment for a band with no hit single, no celebrity status, and no major record label backing. "The Ozrics drift to rock fusion purgatory, where song structure crumbles and whim takes the reins. Riffs splinter like shrapnel. Protracted solos come casually, sometimes two at a time. The sound changes chameleonesquely, from solid, tightly-wrapped Fusion to warped, chaotic drone. " Bob Gulla, Creem Magazine June 6th 1998 saw the band recording a live webcast from the famous Syklopps Studios (the first band to ever webcast from those exalted rooms). This performance was released as a limited edition CD titled "Spice Doubt" by Streaming Music/ Cyberphonics, and quickly sold out. The band's newest release, "Waterfall Cities," finds the Ozrics doing what comes naturally - playing unbelievably hip songs like "Xingu," a brainy dub that contrasts rising and falling keyboard lines with offbeat drumming and planes of easy astral infinity. Many of the songs on "Waterfall Cities" use a cyclical format, starting with easy streaks of sound that develop into trance riffs over a gradually increasing rhythm, as on "Ch'ai," an Eastern-flavoured dub, and "Spiral Mind," a reverberating trance. A track like "Coily" shows that the Ozrics aren't afraid to start with a bang, either; it moves from a bubbling trance into a rhythm breakdown into several soaring instrumental solos, only to finish back in the initial trance. The jams of Ozric Tentacles take many shapes. On "Sultana Detrii," the band mix Arabian melodies with a towering dub rhythm, while "Aura Borealis" uses a percolating mix of sounds to create an endless peace. On the title track "Waterfall City," a light, quick-moving trance begins with a developing guitar solo that gets overtaken by blistering keyboard, which then releases back into the guitar, only to end in blissful keyboard trailers. For any orchestrated music, the use of space is as important as the notes that are played, and the Ozrics are masters at playing the empty spaces. While the drums keep the beat and the bass rumbles like the bedrock beneath Stonehenge, the lead and trance instruments conjure a whirlwind of sound usually heard only on the floors of raves and dance clubs. All of which makes the Ozrics instrument-driven live performance that much more astonishing. The Ozrics Tentacles are now poised to take America by storm, a country that hasn't yet been fully exploited by the band, but is ripe for their psychedelic Gambia status. A European tour commences in April, closely followed by the launch of the official website (www.ozrictentacles.com) Press Release From Stretchy Records