Ozric Tentacles - Tantric Obstacles

Digitally remastered edition. 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. 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 and electronic, jazzy experimentation. 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" and the more complex "Og-Ha-Be", which kicks off the album with the trademark Ozrics sound - a funky riff that gradually builds and recedes and 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 and plug hole noises. "Trees of Eternity" is clearly influenced by Steve Hillage, whilst "Oddhamshaw Style" and "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 '80s. Tantric Obstacles is a snapshot of the band at the height of the free festival era.