Ozric Tentacles – Afterswish

Why do I constantly remember this being on vinyl back in the early 1990's? A double album in a gatefold cover to boot too. But never mind finding a copy on vinyl, I cannot even find any reference of it ever having been on vinyl, emphasis on "EVER"!

And yet my own memories tell me constantly that I remember my friends owning this on vinyl, I used to play it whilst at their flats back in the day, and it stood out for me at the time as it was the one album I didn't own by OT. Now either I have experienced this in my own reality and then unknowingly slipped through a wormhole into an alternative Universe where Live Underslunky does not exist on vinyl (in which case can anyone help me back into my own reality?), or I am absolutely losing my f*****g marbles with the onset of late middle age (I am 54 this August "2022") in which case can someone get me a bottle of relevant meds to deal with memory loss?

I have seen it said here that this album is an album for the completist and I wholly agree, but as a completist I have to say that this album needs to be on vinyl, only because I just have to have this album on vinyl for my collection to be complete, sadly it is probably because only a completist would buy such an album that would prevent it from ever being in a high enough demand to be pressed on vinyl.

This is like that bridge in Arnhem, it's a vinyl too far! Sadly when it comes to Ozrics albums, apart from two or possibly three albums all studio albums released between 1997 and 2015 have only had one release with no reissues to date and apart from those two or three albums none of those albums released between 1997 and 2015 were given a vinyl release and so when it comes to Ozric albums? There are many a vinyl too short for a completists liking.

This reissue is missing one little tidbit of facts: The year and source of each track. The original "Fat" version has this info.

The other reviewer put it very well on all accounts. When this came out and up until 2000 it was just about the only way to hear some of the early tapes material. The CD versions of the tapes from the discontinued Vitamin Enhanced compilation were unavailable outside the UK, and it’s not like you could walk into any record shop and get them all in one go there, either. Apart from that, it featured three unreleased tracks so if you were an avid fan you had to buy it for those. Nowadays of course things are vastly different: the tapes are available in CD form and, most crucially, if you want to check out ANY part of the admittedly enormous Ozric back catalogue you can simply download – evaluate – purchase accordingly. Therefore this compilation is now directed solely at the completist fan. So for those of you out there, this is a summary of what you’ll be purchasing.

The tracklisting covers five out of the six tapes, excluding Live Ethereal Cereal completely. Now, although that tape had some interesting moments the sound quality was not that great, so you aren’t missing much. Also, the material is not evenly spread throughout the five tapes. Nine tunes are taken from the fantastic Sliding Gliding Worlds album of 1988, four from the equally amazing The Bits Between The Bits of the following year, four from 1986’s There Is Nothing, two from 1985’s Erpsongs and just one from 1986’s Tantric Obstacles – yes, two albums in one year. In fact three, if you count the aforementioned live album. Most of the tunes are great, but I prefer the second CD, which mostly has relaxed ones. It’s A Hup Ho World, Floating Seeds, The Code For Chickendon, Jabular and Sliding Gliding Worlds are chilled and spaced out, Invisible Carpet and Symetricum are incendiary and mindblowing. From the first CD I like most tunes but not as much as the ones on CD 2, and I’m not too fond of Guzzard, Afterswish and Soda Water. If I’d compiled the first CD I would have included Sniffing Dog, Atmosphear and Trees Of Eternity from Tantric Obstacles instead. Finally, form the unreleased tracks I like China Type and Zaii!

The booklet contains some cool ‘80s pictures, a couple of Ed’s drawings (one of them explains what Vita Voom form Jurassic Shift is) and liner notes by Richard Allen of Freakbeat magazine/Delerium Records and all-around space rock/free festival guru, which are really informative and even mention most of the band’s offshoots, which are certainly worth checking out, especially Nodens Ictus, The Ullulators and of course Eat Static, although most releases of the first two are rather obscure and hard to find.

So there you have it. The rabid fan will buy this anyway, for the rest I wouldn’t call this essential. China Type and Zaii! deserve better than 320kbps though.
9/10

Crucial Ozric's compilation back in the day. This was the only way to hear tracks from the early Ozric's tape albums. The tape albums were impossible to track down in the US.

Stand out tracks from Disc 1 include The Sacred Turf, Thyroid, Omnidirectional Bhadra, the insane Velmwend and Fetch Me the Pongmaster.

Long dreamy, space pieces like It's a Hup Ho World, Floating Seeds and The Code For Chickendon take the cake on Disc 2. Symetricum provides a nice explosion of sound towards the end.

Even though the early tape albums have been made available on CD this compilation does include a number of excellent unreleased tracks like Zai!! and Abul Hagag. The accompanying cd booklet, full of Ozric history, makes this album a necessary buy for all fans.