The Album Club: "Pungent Effulgent" by Ozric Tentacles
 

On we go to the third album of round two. Review and discuss here, please.

Cool. Prog fusion psychedelia - almost completely instrumental and one vocal part sounded like Hindi or something. Quality musicianship. I thought the Middle Eastern or Indian musical themes were sort of cliche but that didn't bother me too much. Fun listen 3/5 stars liked it.

Not supposed to start till tomorrow, technically, but ok.

Think you're too eager to retain your A Plus status...
:shycouch:

Then why the **** did you open the goddamn thread you ****ing Nazi?

Bat, put up a goddamn meme

You vill read ze rules, und you vill comply!!!!
https://camo.derpicdn.net/f0286ec67d...gmP1ru1ui4.jpg

(The new album gets posted Sunday, so everyone knows a) what it is and b) to stop (ostensibly) posting reviews of the previous one, but the actual listening/review process lasts from Monday to Saturday.)

Folks is voting but not writing

Ban 'em Frown!!!

This sounds like the soundtrack to a non-existent 80's fantasy movie.

The drummer is fantastic in the tracks where the drum sound sounds more 70's and less 80's.

There's a lot of sounds here that initially seem appealing to me, but after a while I wish there would be some more complexity to the sounds.
It's hard to explain what I mean by that. The synths this band likes to use on this album have a sort of bright, colorful and unsophisticated quality to them. They're appealing much like a handful of gummy bears; sweet and colorful, but best abandoned after a whil for something richer and more nuanced, like some dark chocolate.

It's basically the same thing that turns me off retro wave, like this for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDBbaGCCIhk
Too much sugar, not enough fiber.

The rockier parts are more appealing to me - and the weirder they get, the better. But it does feel more like a load of jamming than any real songwriting. I wish there was more of a feeling of narrative development to the music. Chords and rhythms changing to leads forward rather than looping. This album relies pretty heavily on the following formula: Establish a groove, then ride on it with some variations for several minutes and end the track. This isn't really all that interesting to me.

I'm simplifying it a bit, as there's a bit more going on here, but I do feel like the songwriting is a major problem for me with this album.
If anyone thinks that's a bit of a strange perspective for a music nerd, I'd get that, but I just never really connected with neither prog or rock much.
Or prog-rock. I like my jam on toast, but not so much in music.

Now that I've complained most of the time so far, I'd like to point out that I do find this album enjoyable a lot of the time. It's just that I sort of start wishing there was more/something else going on after a while. It's fun at first, but it gets old for me. The album is 64 minutes long and I feel like my interest in this caps out around the 25 minute mark or so. If this was the soundtrack for a game, I'd probably be more on board with it as it would be in the background then.

There's some good musicianship here and a rock solid rhythm section. I also find some of the keyboard and guitar playing to be quite good.
Thankfully there wasn't much singing going on, because what little there was simply sounded corny to me.

I've regretted my ratings of 2 of my 3 previous album club albums, so I don't know if I feel good about rating this one.
Suffice to say, I'm not keen on returning to this band, but I did have some fun along the way.

Attempting to retcon my scores so far, I'd go with this now:

Hiatus Kaiote - Choose Your Weapon: 5/10
The Divine Comedy - Casanova: 5/10
Goldmund - Famous Places:4/10
Ozric Tentacles - Pungent Effulgent: 6/10

This way, there's some room for worse and better albums, plus the numbers reflect what I think of the albums relative to each other a bit better.

The Ozrics are tough to define since they're sort of an amalgamation of all their big influences (Gong-esque psychedelic prog, Hawkwind's instrumental meanderings, Tangerine Dreamish New Age, Berlin School, Chicago House, etc)....but I suggested this album because I like the variety and mixes of tempos, moods, etc. Pungent Effulgent came out in 1989 but it has a lot of personality. They also put on one helluva good live show. :D

I'll also make the argument that they were ahead of their time in some ways in regards to what was to come in electronic music. This, for instance, was recorded in the mid 80's but sounds like something that could have come from Aphex Twin over a decade later.

It's a nitpick, but I seem to remember the video I used stating that the album is from 1990. Which might of course be totally wrong.

The vinyl release was in 89, and the CD followed in 1990 with an additional track.

Pungent Effulgent - Ozric Tentacles

I’d been meaning to explore Ozric Tentacles ever since my initial forays into the Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble and related recordings of Amorphous Androgynous, but I’ve often felt turned off by the “rock” half of space rock and so from Hawkwind forward I’ve never really given it a fair shake. This week’s listen to OT’s first non-cassette release seems a fitting opportunity to explore the genre.

One of the properties of this album that helped ease me into the rock of it all was that it is almost entirely instrumental. That definitely enhances its accessibility in my book. I was also surprised by the really clean production quality of the recording, which was unexpected for a jam band album out of the late eighties. There are plenty of atmospheric swirling and shimmering effects here, and that’s certainly a plus for me. Slow it down a few clicks, drown it in heavily-sustained keys, and sprinkle in some random John Carpenter or NASA samples and you’d have something right off my shelves. Still, I heard some muted field recordings of birds chirping… so we’re not far off.

By the end of the third track I was getting in the mood for a bit of Bill Laswell so I was quite pleased to hear “The Domes Of G'bal” open with a laid back tempo, reggae rhythm, echo-laden laughter samples, and sweeping effects which clearly flirted with dub.

I enjoyed the majority of the album, though “Kick Muck” was not at all what I was looking for. That said, I imagine it works well to change up the pace here and there for the sake of interest. Thankfully, the closing track returned to a more atmospheric pace, with two minutes of gradual, beatless introduction. The percussion is complemented by more field recordings and world instrumentation, finally tapering off to the sound of cicadas. It appears that two additional tracks were added in subsequent releases - first "Wreltch” for the CD edition in 1990 which did not appear on the original LP, and “Ayurvedism (live)” in 1998 for the first bonus track remastered edition. In 2009 Vinyl Lovers pressed a deluxe edition featuring these two tracks plus five more bonus selections, but I won’t have time to survey the additional content tonight.

All in all an enjoyable listen. Yet another reminder of why return to this club each week. It’s definitely put me into a groove, and I plan to spin Alice in Ultraland and FSOL’s Lifeforms tomorrow.

[b]7.5/10[//b]