Biography

A band from another time, Ozric Tentacles served as the bridge from ’70s cosmic rock to the organic dance and festival culture which came back into fashion during the ’90s. Formed in 1983 with a debt to jazz fusion as well as space rock, the band originally included guitarist Ed Wynne, drummer Nick Van Gelder, keyboard player Joie Hinton, bassist Roly Wynne and second guitarist Gavin Griffiths (though Griffiths left in 1984). The Ozrics played in clubs around London, meanwhile releasing six cassette-only albums beginning with 1984’s Erpsongs. (All six were later collected on the Vitamin Enhanced box set, despite a threatened lawsuit from the Kellogg’s cereal company for questionable artwork.) In 1987, Merv Pepler replaced Van Gelder, and synthesizer player Steve Everett was also added.

Ozric Tentacles’ first major release, the 1990 album Erpland, foreshadowed the crusty movement, a British parallel to America’s hippy movement of the ’60s. Crusties borrowed the hippies’ organic dress plus the cosmic thinking of new agers, and spent most of their time traveling around England to various festivals and outdoor gatherings. The movement fit in perfectly with bands like Ozric Tentacles and the Levellers, and the Ozrics’ 1991 album Strangeitude became their biggest seller yet, occasioning a U.S. contract with Capitol. After the British-only Afterswish and Live Underslunky, 1993’s Jurassic Shift hit number 11 on the British charts — quite a feat for a self-produced album released on the Ozrics’ own Dovetail label. The album was released in America by I.R.S. Records, as was 1994’s Arborescence. Neither album translated well with American audiences — despite the band’s first U.S. tour in 1994 — and Ozric Tentacles returned to its Dovetail label for 1995’s Become the Other. Waterfall Cities closed out the decade in 1999, and the following summer the group resurfaced with Swirly Termination. Hinton and Pepler also perform in the trance-techno outfit Eat Static, and have released several albums on Planet Dog Records. Ozric Tentacles surfaced in 2000 to release Hidden Step, followed by the EP Pyramidion. In 2002, Live at the Pongmasters Ball came out on both CD and DVD, making it their first venture into the latter. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide

No 2

The Ozric Tentacles (commonly known as the Ozrics) are an instrumental band from Somerset, England, whose music can loosely be described as psychedelic. Formed in 1984, the band have released well over 20 albums as of 2005, and become a cottage industry selling around a million albums worldwide despite never having major label backing.

The original line up met on June 21st, 1984, at the Stonehenge Free Festival and their name arose from discussions of hypothetical cereal brands (Malcolm Segments, Desmond Whisps, and Gordon Lumps are among the names that were considered). In the 1980s the band built a fan base on the festival circuit, becoming particularly associated with the Glastonbury Festival, and made a series of cassette releases, sold at gigs and via a fan club.

Their first label release was Pungent Effulgent in 1989, which was also re-released in the early 2000s, packaged with Strangeitude. This was followed by Erpland (1990), an album dedicated to Erp, a character which appears on many of the band’s album artworks. 1991 saw the Strangeitude LP. The track Sploosh! was used by BMW in an advertising campaign and became the band’s only single. By 1993 the band had grossed over three million dollars, and their Jurassic Shift album reached the Top 10 of the UK Album Charts.

The band have gone through myriad line-up changes, with only Ed Wynne (guitar, keyboards) and Champignon [John Egan] (flute) keeping a constant presence since the early 1990s. Many members left to pursue more electronic music spin offs acts, namely Eat Static, Nodens Ictus, Zubzub (Former Ozrics bassist Zia’s new project) and Moksha. Nevertheless, the band maintained their identity and continued with this prolific rate of albums throughout the 1990s, and into the new millennium. They also continued to tour extensively, releasing a live DVD in 2002.

The band are famous for their live performances, long fronted by Champignon, who danced around the stage in a trance-like manner and occasionally plays the flute. Ozric Tentacles have long taken an audio-visual approach to live performance, with an integrated lighting and projections crew. As of 2007, the line up features Ed Wynne (guitar, keyboards), Vinny Shillito (bass), Ed’s wife Brandi Wynne (keyboards) and Merv Pepler(drums, percussion), Champignon having parted company with the band in 2005.