There Is Nothing / Live Ethereal Cereal [Double CD]

There is Nothing is the Ozrics third studio offering, originally released in 1986. There Is Nothing is a vast improvement from their previous cassettes. The performance is better, more energetic, and in your face. The ethnic influences are starting to surface here, but it would be more obvious when John Egan would join the band after There Is Nothing was released. Even the production has quite improved (try listening to Erpsongs, their first cassette, and you'll notice the production is a little messed up in places, and the band did not feel totally confident, that's why it was so hit and miss, that's not such a problem with There is Nothing). The synth sound is better as well, no more just Moog-like solos and VCS-3 like bubbles, there is simply more synths overall, letting Joie Hinton expand more (probably because the other keyboardist, Tom Brooks left, although some sources say he was still there on There Is Nothing). "The Sacred Turf" opens the album and is actually very typical Ozrics, and in fact when people say all Ozric albums are the same (which I'll have to disagree there), these is one song they can point to. There's also an original version of "O-I" that was re-recorded for Pungent Effulgent, this original one is also great, as well. There Is Nothing is by far the Ozric release with the most reggae type numbers here as there are three of them, "Staring At the Moon", "Crab Nebula", and "Kola B'Pep". Plus there's an original version of "Eternal Wheel" which isn't as good as the better known version on Erpland. In fact the original is almost completely unrecognizable, as there's hardly any guitar and it extremely drum machine happy, while the Erpland version succeeds because of actual drums and guitar. There Is Nothing also marks the final album which drummer Tig (Nick van Gelder) played on. He left because of disinterest and several years later (1992-1994) played with Jamiroquai. The way the Ozrics was improving album after album during the cassette era, it's little wonder before the 1980s ended, they were finally able to record for an actual label.

Prior to There is Nothing, they released their first ever live album, entitled Live Ethreal Cereal. Nine cuts spanning four shows, all of them in England, three in Reading, from September and October 1985, and February 1986, and Glastonbury in December 1985. For me, I think this is a vastly underrated live album. Certainly the sound quality isn't the best, but nowhere as bad as a recording off a home tape recorder. You simply have to bear in mind in '85/'86, the Ozrics were still releasing privately-issued cassettes, since in the mid 1980s, most record companies showed little interest in underground music acts, forcing a band like the Ozrics to do it themselves. That also meant they might not have had the biggest budget for the best equipment to record live. But as it goes, this is a truly amazing live album. 80% of the music here is found nowhere else, like "Tentacular Explosion", "Stupid Reggae" (which I think is the album's only real misfire), "Obsticular Explosion", and "Erpitaph". "Aumriff" is the band doing the theme to Gong's "Master Builder" from their 1974 classic You (Steve Hillage's 1978 solo album Green also had a song called "The Glorious Om Riff" which was him doing the same theme from "Master Builder", but no surprise since he did play on You). "Erpriff" for some reason, isn't the same "Erpriff" from Erpsongs. There are two songs from what was then their latest cassette releases, Erpsongs and Tantric Obstacles, in this case, "Dots Thots" and "Og-Ha-Be". What makes these live versions special are they are not complete clones of the originals. Certainly the themes are recognizable, but they added on different solos making them almost like new compositions. Certainly an album like Live Underslunky or Live at the Pongmasters Ball have much better sound quality (thanks to much more professional equipment, plus a proper record label behind them), no wonder they are thought of much better than Live Ethereal Cereal, but this album captures the early Ozrics with that wonderful raw excitement. Incredible stuff. If you don't mind the sound quality, you'll enjoy this album. As for There is Nothing, this is probably where you should start when collecting their pre-Pungent Effulgent albums.

As a huge Ozric Tentacles fan, I really wanted to like this reissue of older material. Unfortunately, while There is Nothing is interesting, it offers little that is not done better elsewhere. Live Etheral Cereal, on the other hand, is simply awful. Ozric Tentacles live is an incredible show and this collection from several different live performances does absolutely nothing to reflect that. Most of them feature the band in a selfindulgent doodling mode that is extremely tedious and ultimately just plain boring. This one is for fans and completists only.

The 4th in Ozric Tentacles cassette-era albums, There Is Nothing is an improvement over Tantric Obstacles and Erpsongs in overall quality. The recording is better, the material more developed, and the instrumentation tighter. This is definitely an energetic CD.

My favorites are the opening rocker 'Sacred Turf', the ethereal 'Jabular', the surf guitar tinged 'Invisible Carpet' (which incongruously opens with a chainsaw sound), the "space reggae" tracks 'Crab Nebula' and 'Kola B'Pep', and the long, synthesizer-driven jam, 'Imhotep'.

I think if you are a fan of the Ozrics, all the (newly reissued) 80's stuff is worth getting, if you don't mind the 80's sounding synthesizers. Newbies should start with 'Erpland', but this would be a good next purchase.