sun ra

...there can really be no doubt in any cats mind that this is one heavy beatnik trip into the midnight world of secret jam sessions in the dimly lit basements far from the square world, this is a missive from the other place, that far away land where its all happening for those that understand the message, that get the vibe and take nourishment...the first number has a hallmark of B-movie soundtrack stamped on it, an exploito drugged up beats/gangster flick, only this flick would have a very heavy avant garde feeling, film noir from some back alley studio where all the cats are on a substantial methadrine trip, a monochrome bill burroughs grime filled landscape where reality is illusive in metaphor...theres a school of thought this tune might be recorded around 1964 and its a different sound to the title track(2 versions)so this is quite a legitimate surmising...strange strings itselves are total mindblast, mid sixties free jazz/avant blowout, a cats got to think zappas monster magnet/AMM/godz tribal jams/deads heavy air experiments in 68/uptown NYC modal jazzers, the ra combo got it going on, building a sound catherdral containing many mansions, themselves in turn contain infinite rooms with the walls melting and reshaping, temporal imbalance as life force...a massive wigged out spaceways ride through to the outer reaches of wherever it is, god may well have been an astronaut...no lesser personage than john gilmore seems to remember this session bein taped at ESP-Disk laboratories around '66, more proof if any were still needed of that labels HEPnacious attitude...it all ends with ten minutes of fun with the tape, the creakin door opening and closing, allowing glimpses of a strung out centuries old jam session, grooving in slow motion, being sucked into the world of the never ending wobble...the wax originally appeared in '67 getting jazz snobs into a complete lather with their total non comprehension of what was going on around them, whilst no one else knew of its existence(or cared)...
...strange...

...this is an extra solid gone flipped out bagful from the ra combo, everyone grooving in a spaceways funky jam, with stretched hard bop, weirdo lounge plinking, rhythm box chugging away and a general mangling of the shards of sound letting loose and spraying the audience with enlightning beams from way off and way out saturn...a wigged voyage on the ever reliable rocket#9, this was originally put out as a single LP in the early 80s(when ra's star was in the ascendent once again with media trendies) with just three tracks, here we have the complete gig(italy 78), over two hours of explosive heavy jazzbo vibes from the creation of time to infinity, from planet to planet...hallucinogenic sounds from deep inside the wayward soul of benevolent space brothers who inhabit the creative thoughts of sun ra...tripped out big band splat oozing and weaving, going with the flow, total immersion in unknown possibilities, random connections enabling new thoughts for new patterns...what it is, is, what it is, its ra communicating with the earth-cats, bringing the knowledge and hope from his home planet to the everlasting multiverse, swinging with the hep vibes for beatnik layabouts and cafe hooligans and cellar-dwellers from out beyond the kingdom...
...3000...