The Hidden Step

One of the most influential bands to emerge from the UK's festival scene, the Ozrics layer ambient and ethereal landscapes with freeform dub trips, incredible rave grooves, and psychedelic progressive rock. It's an open exploration of music and the soul.

A raggle-taggle, unpretentious assortment of punk-infused, dreadlocked hippies, since 1983, the Ozric Tentacles wove psychedelic audio-tapestries that captured the almost dangerous musical diversity of the free festival scene, blending acid rock with dub, reggae, ethnic world music, and electronic, jazzy experimentation. This was the soundtrack to the herb-fragranced, alternative lifestyle that wound its way around country lanes looking for a place to set up and party, away from the psychoses of corporate life.

The Hidden Step is the ninth studio album by English band Ozric Tentacles. It was released in 2000. It was their last to include bassist Zia Ahmad Geelani (except for the track "Oakum" on Spirals In Hyperspace) and drummer "Rad" (Conrad Prince). It was also the first Ozric Tentacles album that does not feature a cover by the artist Blim; the cover art, by guitarist Edward Wynne, features his cat, Pixel. Incorporating new sounds, the band entered the new millennium with a new style. The Hidden Step has been remastered by Ed Wynne.