First published in  Lonely Goat Print Magazine Volume II - #8

Close Encounters of the Blurred Kind: Ozric Tentacles @ Ziggy's
by J.D. Edwards (September, 1999)

This summer a race of musically advanced aliens from some place called England orbited close enough for the first time in five years to pay us stateside terrestrials a visit. I'm speaking of course of the young lads in Ozric Tentacles, absent from the states since 1994. This time around they brought some fellow intergalactic travelers, Star People, with them to challenge our conceptions of time and space.

The inimitable Star People opened the show to the incredulous eyes of stargazers united. These mutant-hybrids stormed on stage in matching tuxedos and blasted ferociously into what one friend could only dub "progressive lounge music." Their sound combined Hawkwind's heavy Goth metal vibe with a dose of spoken-word, space-related metaphysical rambling a la Sun Ra and more recently Col. Bruce. And while most locals tried to determine whether everything was tongue-in-cheek or whether they actually took themselves seriously, they achieved their primary purpose by leaving us wondering if we hadn't traversed some hyperdimensional barrier upon entering the Winston Salem city limits that evening.

This left the audience, sizable by this point for a Wednesday with an underground band, in the perfect mindset for the evening's main attraction , Ozric Tentacles. For those unfamiliar with The Ozrics, the quintet ties together metal-like guitar (without the show-offey posturing), Techno/new agey synthesizer (without the repetition), maniacal jazz-fusion drumming, hypnotic house-music bass propulsions and the occasional flute suggestions for a whole resembling the soundtrack to a science-fiction marathon.

And as usual the boys complemented their ethereal swirls with the most visually arresting light show in the business, courtesy of Fruit Salad Lights. Draped in greens, oranges and purples and flashing strobe lights and shadowed by one weaving interlocking mandala after another, the band drew heavily from their brand new release with a variety of old favorites for two hours worth of illuminated jamming. The light show has been significantly toned down since their last landing, an obvious fatality of the rigorous financial demands of a club touring schedule.

But the lights were so tied to the music that they almost seem to guide the musicians. Every stop was punctuated by a burst of phosphorescence, every change in the tone or pitch painted by tints along the spectral roulette. The member's mechanical movements were amplified by the slow-motion strobe lights creating a multi-media extravaganza of such magnanimity that my vision was left fuzzed and flooded with imagery. And like the proverbial UFO sighting, witnesses were left to ponder whether what they saw was an optical illusion, a projection of an overactive subconscious or a bona fide contact from beyond.