One of the most influential bands to emerge from the UK’s festival scene, the Ozrics layer ambient and ethereal landscapes with freeform dub trips, incredible rave grooves and psychedelic progressive rock. It’s an open exploration of music and the soul.
For over 25 years, the Ozrics have experienced the vicissitudes of the rock and roll life. The band has flourished through a number of line-up changes, spawned several side projects (including Eat Static and Nodens Ictus), created their own record label (Dovetail & Stretchy), put out close to 25 albums, scored a hit record and sold over a million albums world-wide. And yet, the basic motivation behind the band’s existence has never wavered.
A campfire at the Stonehenge free festival in 1983 witnessed the birth of Ozric Tentacles. It was there that synth player Joie Hinton, stumbled upon brother’s Ed Wynne (guitar) and Roly Wynne (bass), performing in a band known at the time as Bolshem People, along with drummer Nick ‘Tig’ Van Gelder (Jamiroquai). From that very first jam session, a musical compatibility was evoked that has since been a trademark of the Ozric Tentacles. It’s a signature blend of hippy aesthetics and raver electronics with spiralling guitars, textured waves of keyboard and midi samplers, and supergroovy bass and drum rhythms.
The Ozrics return in April 2009 with the new studio album The Yumyum Tree, their first since 2006’s The Floor’s Too Far Away. The band will be on tour throughout 2009.
