Waterfall Cities

Coily and Xingu, the first 2 tracks, really don't set the tone. Although great in their own right with acidhouse-like meanderings they seem a little divorced sonically to what comes later. Then the titular track Waterfall Cities hits you and the whole album just takes off. The tracks are so individual it's an absolute joy to behold.

"Ch'ai?" I've never heard anything like this before from Ozrics. It creates images of a theatrical show in Thailand with the dancers performing on stage.

"Spiral Mind" A bass driven epic that could fool you into thinking Chris Squire from YES is playing!

"Sultana Detrii" One of the most seductive and technically beautiful tracks this band has ever written. It starts with a low key reggae affair and then just transforms into one of the most fantastical, progressive, synth swirling instrumentals ever to grace an Ozrics disc.

"Aura Borealis" - Just a beautiful track underpnned by subtle synth arppegiations and has a light, mystical feel that's perfect to bring this wonderful album to a close.

Waterfall Cities is an absolute essential purchase for any Ozric Tentacles fan or ambient/contemporary progressive rock lover.

Spiralmind is almost entirely sequenced, as Zia explained in the Ask Ozric interviews. The bass and drums are sequenced as is the majority of the synth parts and occasionally Ed's guitar makes an appearance. This isa more trance orientated track, which would obviously be a key factor to the later Hidden Step album, more obvious tracks pointing towards this would be either Curious Corn, from Curious Corn, or Wob Glass, from Become The Other.

Waterfall City is a glide through rapids at breakneck speeds, at some points threatening to completely turnyou over. A warning here: this track does destroy in ear headphones, mine now have an annoying flutter at the highest peak of the song. Another track with a drum machine, perhaps my favourite part is the ominous outro, or Ed's blazing solo somewhere in the middle of the huge 11 minute track.

Sultana Detrii is a powerful 5 man dub workout, clamoured for live and conmpleted with as much accuracy in either condition. Nothing artificial here (expect synth of course), Rad scorches the track with his usual style of stunning thrashing, and Ed also has a moment of complete frenzy halfway through. Noises remeniscent from Todd Rundgren's Todd turn up in a carefully orchestrated masterpiece, where everyone gets a go at doing what they do best.

Aura Borealis is perhaps the track I listen to least on this album, the reason being either I rarely get through the disc that far, or that the opening sounds remind me of some of the sound effects from Master Of Orion II. As you could imagine, not the best start for a song. But it blossoms into a synth workout where nothing is over the top, just purely designed to relax you after the torrid ride that the previous six tracks have been.

Ch'ai? is another track with a mysterious title, but the oriental theme familiar to that from Afterswish's Chinatype. The fluttering opening lets way to the funkiest of synthesized bass lines, which at that point is totally unexpected. The Ibanez gets a work out for a couple of bars to lift the song, but all too soon it is over.

But perhaps the strongest track on the album is Xingu. While many consider this to be just a jam that somehow crept onto the CD, more than a few listens opens up a whole new world in this song. The dark and mysterious beginning, with cascading samples and oriental string sections hooks the ears, before the entire piece magically turns into a flower in the middle section, with reverse synth lines and percussion blooming, especially on the version recorded for Pyramidion. The hanging bells and gong simply add to its graceful beauty, before we are eased back into the sample that started it all off, and back into the original minor key, for the fadeout. It may not be the longest track (Spiralmind takes that award at 11:40), the most varied (Coily) or scary (Coily...again), but it seems to me to have a lot of power, and the guys must agree as it appears nearly always on live setlists.