Formed around a camp fire at the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1983, the Ozric Tentacles built a cult following, mesmerizing their audience with psychedelic, ambient, cosmic soundscapes. Embracing rave culture with new age, hippy principles, the band created a kaleidoscope of dreamy, tie-dyed, jazz-tinged, spacey sounds, and found particular kinship with the Glastonbury Festival. Building their reputation by selling home-made cassette albums to fans at gigs throughout the 1980s, their first conventionally released album Pungent Effulgent (1989) received positive reviews, and their fame spread to the US with the cult success of Strangeitude (1991). The track Sploosh! was used by BMW in an advertising campaign and they approached mainstream acceptance when Jurassic Shift (1993) reached Number 11 in the UK album charts, as the band continued to trip through elongated trance-like jams. Eccentric and otherworldy, the group's fan base stayed loyal through 28 albums, propelling record sales to over a million as the Ozrics continued their search for new sonic horizons.
