Search - Ozric Tentacles :: Waterfall Cities: Hidden Step

Freeking awesome.

Steven J. Schultz | Nowhere of consequence | 01/27/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"My two favorite Ozric's records together. 'The Hidden Step' opens with the Middle-Eastern flavored rave-up "Holohedron". Then the title track comes along evoking Jean-Luc Ponty and Orbital at the same time. "Ashlandi Bol" sounds like it was from the 'Pungent' sessions. You get the dark, moody "Aramanu" next, like if JLP got all sinister-like. "Pixel Dream" brings to mind Camel in places, and has some of Zia's finest bass playing. "Tight Spin" begins smoothly, building on a dance-friendly groove, then at about 6:35, Ed cuts into some DiMeola-esque staccato noodling that positively seethes. On the closer, "Ta Khut", John plays an ambient flute solo for nearly 3 minutes before anything else happens. Eventually, you get a cool guitar/flute duet meandering over some hand drums. Soon, a break in the clouds as a shimmering synth releases warm yellow sunlight on the precedings. Their darkest album, lovely though.

"Waterfall Cities" delivers something else. Opener "Coily" cuts loose with some odd meter jamming from the Billy Cobham school of freaky groove. Then switching to a straight four beat for Ed's glorious solo, a quick odd-meter recap for some swirling dervishes on the keys, solos for John and Ed in a driving 6, then the total change over to a furious 4 beat for the killer coda. Yikes! That's just the first track. "Xingu" cruises along on a circulating bass ostinato, building curiosity to the relatively bright midsection. The title track is another JL Ponty-inspired (circa 'Open Mind') raver, gets my feet and head going under any circumstance. With "Ch'ai?", we get a total change in mood and style: a visit to the Far East. Ed's solo comes on top of a highly funky groove that Bootsy himself would approve of. "Spiralmind" starts with some cool bass and drum melody interplay, some silvery acoustic guitar joining in after a bit, gradually morphing into a relentless dance number. Intensity builds to Ed's solo around 8:30, then things wind down into my very favorite number on any Ozric record: "Sultana Detrii". This dark reggae-informed track is so smooth. And the progged out yet simple bridge section evokes funkified sections of "Relayer". The fairly ambient closer, "Aura Borealis" brings to mind some more JLP, never a bad thing in my book.

I can't really hear any difference in the mastering between these versions and the originals, both are crisp and bright throughout. If you already have both of them, I wouldn't bother getting this edition. However, if you have neither, you should rectify the situation forthwith!"