Nodens Ictus

…on the evening of Sunday the 29th of July 2018 at Kozfest in Devon…after the clouds had finally dispersed and the sun was setting comfortably…

Nodens Ictus are a British electronic music project formed by Ed Wynne and Joie Hinton in 1986 as an ethereal offshoot of UK psychedelic rock band Ozric Tentacles. The Cozmic Key was the first Nodens album for 17 years when self-released in December 2017. With various line-ups over the years, the band have played live semi-frequently since the late '80's often supporting Ozric shows. Ed Wynne is, without doubt, a gifted instrumentalist, a visionary, a prodigal symphonist and one of the UK's leading influential musicians. He is credited as one of the linchpins of the UK festival scene's re-emergence along with his band Ozric Tentacles, who formed at Stonehenge Free Festival 1983 and became staples of the Glastonbury Festival, with their most recent performance at Glastonbury in 2016 on the Glade stage.

Nodens Ictus was an Ozric Tentacles side project started in the late 80's by Ed Wynne (Ozric Tentacles) and Joie Hinton (Eat Static) with some input from Merv Pepler (Eat Static), who played ambient chill-out tunes for the Club Dog and other clubs. These recordings date from 1986 to 1989, with two tracks from the year 2000. The one most noticeable thing about this CD compared to the two tapes that the band produced (The Grove of Selves and Live at the Club Dog) is the sonic production quality. Some of the material is very new agey. The band mix in cool samples from the rain forest, little strange things here and there but mostly it is sweeping synth sounds with minimal percussion, although there are some programmed drums on some tracks, like the second track, Spacelines…

The first Planet Dog compilation, released in America on Mammoth, is an intriguing collection of psychedelic ambient-dub, with representative label acts like Banco de Gaia and Eat Static appearing alongside special guests like the Drum Club, Pressure of Speech and System 7 (who contribute a remix of their "Habibi"). Even though a few of the other producers are a bit obscure, even Tuu, Ullulators and Optic Eye turn in solid, dubby tracks.

Originally released on Third Stone Records in 2004, this was the first officially available album from Spatialize. Sitting with the old vanguard of atari/synth/sampler production tradition, Dryad's Bubble has stood the test of time remarkably well. Layers of space synths float dreamily across breakbeats and deep basslines whilst highly manipulated samples flit in and out of the mix. A hybrid of style, comparable in places to Nodens Ictus, The Orb, FSOL, Ishq or Ozric Tentacles, Dryad's Bubble has recently been dubbed a classic of synth electronica and is often praised for it's ability to withstand repeated listens.