Ozric Tentacles is a British instrumental rock band from Somerset, England. They use a lot of keyboards and electronic sounds in addition to the usual instruments of rock (guitars, percussion, drums, bass ...) which enriches the sound of their music, including the clever use of many effects. This group evokes Hawkwind, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Gong, Steve Hillage and the Swiss Yello. The band's style is at the crossroads of psychedelic rock, space rock, progressive rock, jazz fusion, instrumental rock, electronic rock, dub, world music, livetronica, and neo-psychedelia. . The group sold a million copies, a good figure for a group that never signed at a major. Only co-founder and guitarist Ed Wynne is a remaining member of the original formation>.
Ozric Tentacles was formed at the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1983, where brothers Ed, Roly Wynne, drummer Nick "Tig" Van Gelder and keyboardist Joie Hinton, play under the name of Bolshem People. After six hours of jam session, someone will ask for the name of their group, which Ed Wynne will answer Ozric Tentacles. The name comes from a conversation during which they were thinking about a name for extra-terrestrial cereals >>>.
In 1984, their first major formation change was made with the departure of the second guitarist, Gavin Griffiths, who will form the group Ulluators.
The following year saw the release of the Erpsongs cassette. Then comes out Tantric Obstacles the same year; this cassette was to be an album. These early tracks sometimes include only Ed Wynne's guitars, bass, and synthesizer. All are recorded using a TEAC four-head cassette recorder in their Rushmere studio, Wimbledon Common, London. Some songs on cassette albums are played by drum machine>.
In 1989, the group signed to the Dovetail Records label, and released Pungent Effulgent. The album is originally published in vinyl format, but is published in CD the following year. They then released Erpland in 1990, a double album. According to Ed Wynne, Erpland was recorded under the influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The following year, the group reached for the first time the UK Indie Chart with the single Sploosh! from Strangeitude. Around 1992, the band decided to set up their own studio to reduce the cost of recording an album. >.
