Once considered the more dance-oriented cousin of Ozric Tentacles, England's Ship of Fools sailed their trippy hippie jive across two full-length CDs back in the early Nineties. Perhaps you were even sober enough to remember 1993’s “Close Your Eyes, Forget the World” and the following year’s “Out There Somewhere,” from which this nine-track collection was culled. Led by keyboard player Les Smith, who later shifted musical gears and went on to infamy in Cradle of Filth and now Anathema, Ship of Fools was – and remains, thanks to this CD – delightfully and engagingly bizarre. Bits of spoken-word and funky spaced-out passages warp into psychedelic twinkles and electronic twitches, and warm, fuzzy melodies abound. There’s even some sample dialogue from Dorothy’s closing scene in “The Wizard of Oz.”
No wonder the metal label Peaceville Records formed a less extreme and appropriately named sister label called Dreamtime Records to provide Ship of Fools a home port. If you missed these guys the first time around, now’s your chance to experience a band that faded way before its time, but not before leaving some mind-altering and groundbreaking material behind.
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