Octopus (Gentle Giant album)
| Octopus | ||||
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| Studio album by Gentle Giant | ||||
| Released | December 1, 1972 | |||
| Recorded | July 24 - August 5, 1972, Advision Studios, London | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock, symphonic rock | |||
| Length | 34:09 | |||
| Label |
Vertigo (UK) Columbia (U.S.) |
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| Producer | Gentle Giant | |||
| Gentle Giant chronology | ||||
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| Alternative cover | ||||
US and Canadian release.
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
Octopus is the fourth album by British progressive rock band Gentle Giant, released in 1972. It was the first album by Gentle Giant to feature drummer John Weathers following the departure of Malcolm Mortimore, as well as the last album by the band to feature Phil Shulman. The new line-up of the band delivered the Octopus album later in 1972, generally considered to represent the start of the band's peak period.
Octopus was allegedly named by Phil Shulman's wife Roberta as a pun on "octo opus" (eight musical works, reflecting the album's eight tracks). In 2004, Ray Shulman commented "(Octopus) was probably our best album, with the exception, perhaps of Acquiring the Taste. We started with the idea of writing a song about each member of the band. Having a concept in mind was a good starting point for writing. I don't know why, but despite the impact of The Who's Tommy and Quadrophenia, almost overnight concept albums were suddenly perceived as rather naff and pretentious".
The album maintained Gentle Giant's trademark of broad and challengingly integrated styles. One of the highlights was the intricate madrigal-styled vocal workout "Knots", lyrically inspired by the work of R. D. Laing. The album's songs are generally based on novels and philosophers: "The Advent of Panurge" is inspired by the books of Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais; "A Cry for Everyone" is inspired by the work and beliefs of the Algerian-French writer Albert Camus, while the song "Knots" is inspired by the book Knots by the Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing.
On the 30th October 2015, a Steven Wilson remix was released on CD/Bluray via the band's Alucard label. 3 tracks were unable to be discretely remixed as multi-track tapes are currently reported missing (Tracks 1, 2 & 5) while the remaining tracks were. The 3 tracks however have been upmixed to 5.1 surround with the Penteo surround mixer.
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Wikipedia