OZRIC TENTACLES - There Is Nothing (1986)

Ozric Tentacles - There Is Nothing (1986) (@256)
(Review from progarchives.com)

This was their final album to feature Tig (Nick van Gelder) who later spent a short time with Jamiroquai (although not on the album that featured that hit with the dorky video, “Virtual Insanity”). This is truly Ozrics on their way to more great things to come. The album opens up with “The Sacred Turf”, an intense jam that the band often finds themselves doing on many of their albums, this is pretty typical Ozrics. You have an original of “O-I” which was later re-recorded for “Pungent Effulgent”. Sticks pretty much the same, with a different solo. “Jabular” is one of their more techno-like pieces, but I mean more in an ’80s fashion, not ’90s, like often heard on the albums they did when Rad and Seaweed were in the band (like Curious Corn, Waterfall Cities, and The Hidden Step). “Staring at the Moon” is one of the three reggae type pieces found on this album. “Lull Your Skull” is an interesting one, with some great synth work, and Roly giving us an odd combination of fretless and slap-bass work. As a matter of fact, I feel Roly gives us his best bass work here, showing his abilities on fretless, as well as the standard bass using the slap-bass technique, something he didn’t seem to do on other albums. “Crap Nebula” and “Kola B’Pep”, once again, are more reggae pieces, while “Thrashing Breath Texture” is a more thrashing piece. Not all the pieces on this album work. For example, the original version of “The Eternal Wheel”. It was vastly improved on “Erpland” with actual guitars and drums, this one is little more than a drum machine experiment that seems to little for me, and it’s almost completely unrecognizable. The album closes with the wonderful title track, a cool ambient experiment with ethnic influences (and despite the ethnic influences, just to let you know that John hadn’t even joined the band yet). With the exception of “The Eternal Wheel”, another great Ozric albums, in my book.

Line-up :
- Ed Wynne / guitar, synthesizer
- Joie Hinton / synthesizer, sampling
- Tom Brooks / synthesizers
- Roly Wynne / bass
- Tig (Nick van Gelder) / drums
- Paul Hankin / percussion

Track List :
01. The Sacred Turf (3:14)
02. O-I (4:42)
03. Jabular (3:53)
04. Staring at the Moon (4:52)
05. Airy Area (3:44)
06. Travelling the Great Circle (4:05)
07. Imhotep (12:03)
08. Thrashing Breath Texture (3:31)
09. Crab Nebula (5:39)
10. Lull Your Skull (3:01)
11. Invisible Carpet (5:47)
12. The Eternal Wheel (9:53)
13. Kola B’Pep (6:36)
14. There is Nothing (1:19)

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