We use cookies on our website to provide you with the best experience. Most of these are essential and already present.
We do require your explicit consent to save your cart and browsing history between visits. Read about cookies we use here.
Your cart and preferences will not be saved if you leave the site.
play
Out of stock

Sun Ra

Other Strange Worlds

Label: Roaratorio

Format: Vinyl LP

Genre: Jazz

Out of stock

Never-heard studio music from the legendary Sun Ra – material recorded right around the same time as the unique Strange Strings session – and which really stands as a "part 2" to that amazing record! The sound is very loose and open, but quite spiritual too – and the record is definitely one of the most unique Sun Ra sessions ever heard. Within Sun Ra’s vast-as-outer-space discography, the album that orbits the furthest away from the known jazz universe is Strange Strings. Calling it a “study in ignorance,” Ra directed his Arkestra stalwarts to pick up unusual stringed instruments and homemade percussion with which they had little familiarity, and improvise without any guidelines or direction; the resulting record is one of Ra’s best. Now, Roaratorio is proud to issue a satellite around that lonely planet: Other Strange Worlds, recorded in Ra’s NYC apartment in May of 1965, dates from the same era and employs the same methodology as Strange Strings. But while the latter album featured the full Arkestra, Other Strange Worlds pares the players down to a core quintet of Ra, John Gilmore, Marshall Allen, Art Jenkins, and Ali Hasaan. There’s plenty of freewheeling collective improvisation in the Ra catalog, but rarely in a small-group setting such as this. Half of the pieces are texture-over-tonality string experiments, while the rest feature exotic reeds and percussion. Other Strange Worlds is a significant addition to Sun Ra’s body of work, and a brilliant example of free improv from the days before it had a name. Download coupon included.

“There’s always more Ra being issued than anyone can keep up with. But this one’s essential. Don’t skip it.” – Byron Coley

Details
Cat. number: ROAR 033LP
Year: 2014