Music Banter - View Single Post - Anteater Presents: An Essential Guide To Modern Prog.

Anteater · 10-16-2009, 07:29 PM

8.

Ozric Tentacles – Jurassic Shift (1993)

1. Sunhair (5:43)
2. Stretchy (6:51)
3. Feng Shui (10:24)
4. Half Light in Thillai (5:35)
5. Jurassic Shift (11:05)
6. Petranodon (5:40)
7. Train Oasis (2:45)
8. Vita Voom (4:48)

Quote:

...And all the orchard trees blossomed forth in strange colours, and through the stony soil of the yard and adjacent pasturage there sprang up a bizarre growth which only a botanist could connect with the proper flora of the region. No sane wholesome colours were anywhere to be seen except in the green grass and leafage; but everywhere were those hectic and prismatic variants of some diseased, underlying primary tone without a place among the' known tints of earth.

- H.P. Lovecraft
The Colour Out Of Space

When you listen to your favorite genre of music, a song you hold close to your soul, or see the band or artist you enjoy the most at a live show, what kinds of sensations do you experience?

Do your nerves tingle, moved to attention by the cascading sounds your little mind perceives? Or perhaps your emotions are touched, the beats stimulating the oozings of memory and feeling that make you who you are.

When it comes to the Ozric Tentacles and myself, I neither feel nor move. Rather, I close my eyes and see colors. And not just any nameable shade or tincture, but sharp bleeding brightnesses that simply cannot be categorized within the confines of human language.

Such is the power of this band for me, an instrumental group who bring about a powerful timbre in their playing that blends the best of psychedelia, space rock, dub, house, trance, prog. and even reggae into a cocktail that only gets better the longer you sip, and 1993's Jurassic Shift is where I bought my flagon.

This particular work, the only one within the Ozrics somewhat prolific discography that ended up charting on U.K. charts back in the early 90's, represents the band at their most mature and accessible. Proggers will get a kick out of the elastic track structures and hypnotic keyboards, as well as the epic track lengths that mark both "Feng Shui' and the title piece as this record's set of lungs, yet even so there a variety of hooks and layers to keep even the casual listener engaged.

Throughout the shorter pieces on the album, a contrast between Ozrics' progressive guitar-driven tendencies ('Sunhair', 'Vita Voom') and their electronic/dub groovings ('Stretchy', 'Pteranodon') should be readily noticed and appreciated by people who are turned off by epic track lengths. It's duality that later Ozric Tentacles' albums would not have, but on Jurassic Shift such arrangement makes the album flow about as perfect and balanced as you can get.

Modern progressive bands really need to take a few notes from the Ozrics; not only are they quite complex and rocking here, but there's a compulsiveness and liquidity that is in unfortunate short supply within both the prog. rock and metal schools of thought today. In a sense, this is the ideal antidote to the poison that are boring shred fests.

So take heed children. When you go treading on toadstools in the depths of a forest, these are the guys to have on repeat.