gts192 “tentaclish”
This might be a big bite to chomp at first, but it’s darn good at backgrounding. Put this on while doing something else, and you’ll find yourself smiling at it. Also works when watching some sportsball match: turn down the inane commentary and put this on instead.
01-01 Ozric Tentacles – Early Daze Vol1 14 – Swerve Synth (198x)
— early stuff, spanning 1983 to 1985. There are two more volumes of “Early Daze”. Closely resembling a collective rather than a band, which explains all the off-shoots and side-projects, here is a snapshot of the lineup, circa 1990:
Ed Wynne – Guitar, Synthesizer, Sampling
Gavin Griffiths – Guitar
John Egan – Flute
Joie Hinton – Synthesizer, Sampling
Tom Brooks – Synthesizer
Steve Everitt – Keyboards
Roly Wynne – Bass
Tig (Nick Van Gelder) – Drums
Merv Pepler – Drums, Percussion
Paul Hankin – Congas, Percussion
Marcus “Carcus” Diess – Percussion
01-02 The Ullulators – Beyond The Gates Of Ull 203 – Sloshy Sausages (1986)
— to ullulate, is to operate your vocal chords while using the larynx, cheeks and tongue to make an oscillation.
01-03 The Ullulators – Monads Of Mangonia 102 – Special Brew (1989)
— almost all the releases by this conglomeration of bands are on cassette tape. Yes, this reduces the sound quality, but on the other hand, the low cost of self-publishing on affordable media helped them to release a giant amount of music.
02-01 The Oroonies – The Woods Are Alive With The Smell Of His Coming 102 – The Smell (1985)
— by now, you might see the letter S is popping up a lot. The catalogue is so vast, seemed as likely a delineator as any.
02-02 Ozric Tentacles – Muck Kicker 204-205 – Sniffing Dog-Irish Jig (1992)
— as mentioned in the song, this is from Glastonbury Festival.
02-03 Cheapsuit Oroonies – Eat Drink And Be Merry 103 – Sonaf Khamsa (1993)
— transition goes from Celtic folk to MidEast folk so smoothly, it’s like butter fried in butter. Makes you think, about the phrase ‘world music’. There are two drop-outs in this tune, which happens when your tape gets eaten by the tape player and you pull it out and re-tighten the winding. I could have *mitigated* them but not eliminated them, which is a limitation of my skill at audio engineering. Chose to leave in situ.
03-01 Ozric Tentacles – Afterswish 110 – Secret Names (1991)
— famous for sometimes playing 6-hour improvisation sets, often for free, and also famous for the artwork on self-published cassette tapes. The art is funky, but not in the “funk” sense, but rather in the sense of “fungus”, as in “that guy must eat a lot of mushrooms”.
03-02 The Ullulators – Share A Clam With The Ullulators 108 – Stomach Speaker (1985)
— the first release by Ullulators, a brainchild of Gavin Griffiths and Joie Hinton.
04-01 Ozric Tentacles – Strangeitude 104 – Strangeitude (1991)
— the cheap distribution model meant they could release a ton of stuff, not kidding that there are nine hours of tunes under this band umbrella, when only counting the ones which start with “S”.
04-02 The Ullulators – Feeling Really Lazer 102 – Sub-Atomic Particle (1994)
05-01 Ozric Tentacles – Curious Corn 01 – Spyroid (1997)
— originally the Wynne brothers and Gavin Griffiths, formed about 1982, early potential band names centered on spurious breakfast cereals.
05-02 The Oroonies – Exalt The Horn 206 – Shadwok (1986)
05-03 Ozric Tentacles – 2023-08-19 Hernhill, UK 18 – Sploosh! (2023)
06-01 Evil Edna’s Horror Toilet – Too Much Gristle In The Blancmange 202 – Floating In The Overflow (1986)
— didn’t like EEHT when first listened, but over the next few days, some phrases kept popping up into mind, gave it a re-listen, and then another, and now it’s a favorite. EEHT only released this one tape, and it doesn’t have any titles starting with “S”. Pity. This side-band features:
Gavin Griffiths – Guitar, Sampling
Gary Moonboot (Gary Masters) – Guitar, Didgeridoo, Vocals
Joie Hinton – Synthesizer, Sampling
Nana Obscuri (Jane Bradfield) – Vocals, Shenai
Kay Springer – Bass, Vocals