After getting noticed with the titles Funny ways, prolog and school dayswith which the British group Gentle Giant are making a name for themselves among progressive rock fans octopus. A work celebrating its 50th anniversary.
This short album, released December 1, 1972 and totaling 34 minutes, is the fourth by the group, which ceased operations in 1980.
Formed in 1970, Gentle Giant fuses rock, folk, soul, jazz, classical and medieval music, catching the attention of progressive rock fans for the complexity of their music.
Octopus got its name from an idea of multi-instrumentalist Phil Shulman’s wife. The idea was to create eight pieces related to the personality of each of the six members of the formation and two people around them.
This basic idea was then further developed and transformed. Only River, a description of the very “hippy” guitarist Gary Green, and Dog’s Life, which deals with the difficult life of “roadies”, are connected to the original theme.
A confident group
The Advent of Panurge, which opens the album, quickly became a key piece in the repertoire of the formation, which consists of brothers Derek, Phil and Ray Shulman, Gary Green, Kerry Minnear and John Weathers. Just like the boys in the band
Octopus’ fourth track, Knots, is a quintet signature with unique and particularly complex vocal arrangements.
According to Ray Shulman, Octopus is Gentle Giant’s best album, perhaps along with Acquiring the Taste. It was made by the members of the formation.
“I remember we were very confident when we started writing this album. We had a good amount of tracks and our skills in the studio, especially Ray’s, were improving. We continued to experiment with combinations of instruments, sounds and effects, and exchanged ideas with engineer Martin Rushent, who threw himself into our madness,” said guitarist Gary Green in a 2012 interview published on the Ultimate Classic Rock website.