Does anyone else make music like Ozric Tentacles?

[AudioBabble]

I'm asking this both in terms of "established" acts and other musicians on this forum...

Over the years I've heard many acts considered similar to OT but never anything quite like them.

For my part, I've been a fan since my early teens and even played a support slot for them with my band at the 2002 Pongmaster's Ball...

Personally, I thought the line-up of Ed/John/Seaweed/Zia/Rad was their finest and would cite that as being what most readily comes to my mind in defining their sound. Not to say the likes of Pungent Effulgent and Become The Other weren't genre-defining in their own right, but the later 90s stuff had a more precise sound with clever arpeggios and sequencing really coming to the fore.

20 years later I find myself with many tools at my disposal for making music via softsynths and DAW and am not exactly surprised to find that much of what I come out with after fiddling with arpeggiators, synths, etc has a distinctly "Ozricy" vibe. (Of course eventually I would hope that it ends up having a distinctly "me" vibe!)

Anyone else here making Ozricy sounds, or point me in the direction of bands or acts that are musically similar?

[vurt]

hmmm, similar? not really.

anything too similar sounds derivative when it's something so "singular" so it's more likely you'll find bands with passing similarities at most

bands like poisoned electrick head, early porcupine tree, the dead flowers, magic mushroom band...
ship of fools - out there somewhere, is a great space rock album if you don't know that?

[AudioBabble]

Cheers Vurt... had a feeling I might hear from you on anything Ozric-related

I suppose the main thing I'm surprised in a way not to hear more of is the mind-twisting arps and riffs that seem to fold back on themselves. I guess maybe Gong have a similar thing going on but more with bass/guitar riffs than arps.

Definitely agree on early Porcupine Tree (think I read somewhere ages ago that PT played at one the first Pongmasters in London way back). Another mind-blowingly good band which I had the good fortune to catch live at Colchester Arts Centre back 1999. Maybe it's just me but similarly to OT, I thought the late 90s Signify-era stuff from PT was something of a pinnacle.

The others you mention are only vaguely familiar to me so will definitely check them out. Nice one

[vurt]

i think ozrics kind of borrowed it from gong yeah, well hillage mainly.

many years ago, i read an interview with ed, think it was in a guitar magazine.
asked for his influences, two albums i remember, steve hillage fish rising (although his om riff (gongs master builder) is an obvious ozrics prototype ) and can "saw delight".

i like later porcupine tree, but the early stuff is more my thing, im heavily in to the psyche stuff especially!

never made it to an actual pongmasters ball, but have seen ozrics so many times, porcupine tree not so many but did catch them on the "on the sunday of life" tour the first time, which was awesome.
then a couple of times later on.

porcupine tree brings me to "the incredible expanding mind f**k" and "psychomuzak" both steven wilson side projects, more ozricy in flavour

[Psyclapse]

Back in the day I was a big Hillage fan up until Open and then he changed direction and from then on I was just hoping someone else would step in to keep that thing going. Here & Now IIRC kept it going for a while. But then there was a void. Until in the early 90s one day I came across Vitamin Enhanced in my local music shop being sold as separate CDs (I didnt know then it was supposed to be a boxed set). I bought one of the CDs purely on the strength of the crazy song titles, which sounded Gong/Hillage-ish. Listened to it that night and went back the next day and bought a couple more and by the end of the week had all six. Smitten!

Of the folks Ive heard on Kvr I reckon Tim Conrardy came closest to getting the ozric vibe. Ive been trying for literally years to get their sound and have gotten nowhere. Its those magic weaving arps that I'm into. If you've cracked the code AudioBabble I'm open to some hints & tips.

I'd say Entheogenic, Gracerooms & Hidria Spacefolk are each in some ways in the same ballpark as OT, and Nodens Ictus of course (Cosmic Key esp.). Agree the line-up you said was probably their best as a band, but the last couple of CDs Ed has done are right up there with their best albums imo (Shimmer Into Nature / Space for the Earth).

[vurt]

i was lucky enough to have preordered the box set, picked it up first thing release day, then it got withdrawn for copyright reasons, do not f**k with kelloggs
already had all the tapes, but the older ones were a bit over played

not aware of a couple of those names, so cheers

[seismic1]

Waterfall Cities ftw

[vurt]

hmmm, hard to pick one?

strangitude and jurassic shift both have some great dub stylings on, so maybe one of those.
possibly jurassic shift, because, dinosaurs

[seismic1]

I like the polished sound and arrangements on Waterfall Cities. To me, it felt like they had been building towards this sound throughout the '90s. I thought their later albums never quite hit the same level.

[himalaya]

Can't say what sounds like the Ozrics, since...once I listen to Ozric Tentacles I'm fulfilled and don't need anything else... My chalice is full of the Ozric cosmic brew...

A great fan, BTW, still have some early cassettes in a box somewhere. Saw them live twice....

[AudioBabble]

porcupine tree brings me to "the incredible expanding mind f**k" and "psychomuzak" both steven wilson side projects, more ozricy in flavour

Yes - Steven Wilson must have several clones of himself considering the amount of side-projects he's done... not to mention all the production credits for others people. Will definitely check those out

[AudioBabble]

Of the folks Ive heard on Kvr I reckon Tim Conrardy came closest to getting the ozric vibe. Ive been trying for literally years to get their sound and have gotten nowhere. Its those magic weaving arps that I'm into. If you've cracked the code AudioBabble I'm open to some hints & tips.

Thanks for mentioning Tim Conrardy, a legend! A bit hard to find his own music, but I am very interested in his patch collections... a rabbit hole well worth exploring...

Certainly haven't cracked the code by any means... I use Arturia's DX7 a lot and more recently getting into DUNE 3 and SERUM. Dune's onboard Arp-step sequncer is nice... as for weaving arps, it;s interesting to play with the "numbers", e.g. a 12-step pattern over 16 beat bars, 7 step pattern, etc - it reminds me of fractions back in school where you had to find the lowest common denominator

[Erisian]

I don't think anybody comes that close to the Ozrics overall but some of Hawkwind's instrumentals and Gong's instrumentals have a similar spaced out feel to them.

[Psyclapse]

i was lucky enough to have preordered the box set, picked it up first thing release day, then it got withdrawn for copyright reasons, do not f**k with kelloggs
already had all the tapes, but the older ones were a bit over played

Thats a bummer that you had it ordered when it was withdrawn vurt. I'd forgotten that bit of ot history. I can just imagine Mr Kellogg worrying that his customers might pick up a six CD psychedelic box set instead of a packet of cornflakes at their local supermarket, fair play to him.

Dont think I could name a favourite Ozrics CD, I think it would be most of them. I certainly spent a lot of my working life with ear buds in and ozrics spinning in the 90s. 2005-15 was a lean time I'd say, I didnt listen much to YumYum tree, paper Monkeys or Technicians. But I think the last two or three CDs that Ed has put out are awesome. The compositions, playing, production - I think Eds at the top of his game, long may it continue.

[vurt]

not a bummer! i got mine before the record shop got informed