Ozric Tentacles "Erpland"

The dazzlingly diverse "Erpland" features the core Ozric Tentacles (Ed, Roly, Paul, Merv, John and Joe) along with a monster line up featuring old and new friends. Opening with a re-recorded version of "Eternal Wheel" from the "There Is Nothing" cassette, the album drifts onward through a melange of blistering space rock, reggae infused smoking tunes and exotic psychedelic styles, from the eerie "Toltec Spring" and rolling, surging "Tidal Convergence" through to the hypnotic persistence of "The Throbbe". It is, however, the mixing of exotic Asian and Middle Eastern music that makes the Ozrics stand out from the ordinary space rock crowd. The blending of acoustic and electric instruments with spiralling space rock guitar, cross polyrhythmic percussion and bubbling synths on tracks like "Sunscape", "Mysticum Arabicola" and "A Gift Of Wings" gives "Erpland" a delicately perfumed diversity.