Something was definitely in the air in the late 70s, as the end of the decade saw Sun Ra turning out some of the mellowest, and certainly the funkiest jams of his storied career. And although you can't really go wrong with any of the band's output during this period, there are a few albums that rise to the top. Lanquidity, featured some time ago here at the Heat Warps, is one of them. Strange Celestial Road is another. Riding the dark sludgy grooves that propelled Lanquidity to remarkable depths, Strange Celestial Road comes off like a dusty, inexplicably exuberant big band record from the future. Sun Ra's heavily effected electric piano is definitely the focal point here, and while he pulls miles of wild sounds from his machine (at times mimicking the whirr of a dentist's drill to extraordinary effect), none of the album's three tracks skitter off into mayhem as they so easily could. Rather, a skeletal groove threads throughout the proceedings, ultimately tightening the reins and pulling the players, as well as the listener, back to the slow churn of its funky core. A heady affair if there ever was one.
Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Friday
Sun Ra
Strange Celestial Road - 1979
Something was definitely in the air in the late 70s, as the end of the decade saw Sun Ra turning out some of the mellowest, and certainly the funkiest jams of his storied career. And although you can't really go wrong with any of the band's output during this period, there are a few albums that rise to the top. Lanquidity, featured some time ago here at the Heat Warps, is one of them. Strange Celestial Road is another. Riding the dark sludgy grooves that propelled Lanquidity to remarkable depths, Strange Celestial Road comes off like a dusty, inexplicably exuberant big band record from the future. Sun Ra's heavily effected electric piano is definitely the focal point here, and while he pulls miles of wild sounds from his machine (at times mimicking the whirr of a dentist's drill to extraordinary effect), none of the album's three tracks skitter off into mayhem as they so easily could. Rather, a skeletal groove threads throughout the proceedings, ultimately tightening the reins and pulling the players, as well as the listener, back to the slow churn of its funky core. A heady affair if there ever was one.
Something was definitely in the air in the late 70s, as the end of the decade saw Sun Ra turning out some of the mellowest, and certainly the funkiest jams of his storied career. And although you can't really go wrong with any of the band's output during this period, there are a few albums that rise to the top. Lanquidity, featured some time ago here at the Heat Warps, is one of them. Strange Celestial Road is another. Riding the dark sludgy grooves that propelled Lanquidity to remarkable depths, Strange Celestial Road comes off like a dusty, inexplicably exuberant big band record from the future. Sun Ra's heavily effected electric piano is definitely the focal point here, and while he pulls miles of wild sounds from his machine (at times mimicking the whirr of a dentist's drill to extraordinary effect), none of the album's three tracks skitter off into mayhem as they so easily could. Rather, a skeletal groove threads throughout the proceedings, ultimately tightening the reins and pulling the players, as well as the listener, back to the slow churn of its funky core. A heady affair if there ever was one.
Tuesday
Harmonia
Deluxe - 1975
The product of a veritable Krautrock supergroup comprising members of Neu! and Cluster, Harmonia's Deluxe was an LP that all but redefined a genre. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. The band's debut Music Von Harmonia was a triumph, if not necessarily a landmark. Ever present were the hypnotic overlapping grooves that had become commonplace within Cluster, while the whole set was moored in Michael Rother's subtly psychedelic flourishes of guitar and keys that float atop Neu!'s motoric pulse. But rather than illustrate the contributions of its members and the specific talents that each brought to the proceedings, Music Von Harmonia was a concentrated group effort. An exercise in the awesome power of subtlety. What makes Deluxe such a tremendous LP is not in the way that they followed this fomula, but in how they managed to amplify it. Understated, yet epic, Deluxe is simultaneously one of Krautrock's most grandiose statements and its most restrained. While the most immediate difference from its predecessor is its more prominent use of vocals, the greasy synths and soaring lines of guitar (often processed to sound like a synths themselves) elevate every track into a majestic statement - never as clean as Kraftwerk, not nearly as funky as Can, but dripping with an inexplicable level of human emotion and utter happiness that neither band could touch. A monumental achievement and a truly joyful listen.
Sun Ra
Lanquidity - 1978
For those who've always wanted to explore Sun Ra, but found him a bit heavy, heady or just plain hard to get into (guilty as charged), Lanquidity is a godsend. This dark, murky blend of slow funk grooves, dense orchestration and Sun Ra's delicately wild Fender Rhodes loosely groups this LP with Miles Davis' early 70s albums, albeit if they were turned down to about half speed. Here are some excerpts from Matthew Wuethrich's great All About Jazz article on this album.
For those who've always wanted to explore Sun Ra, but found him a bit heavy, heady or just plain hard to get into (guilty as charged), Lanquidity is a godsend. This dark, murky blend of slow funk grooves, dense orchestration and Sun Ra's delicately wild Fender Rhodes loosely groups this LP with Miles Davis' early 70s albums, albeit if they were turned down to about half speed. Here are some excerpts from Matthew Wuethrich's great All About Jazz article on this album. "You feel as if this music should go down easy, but the candy coating turns out to be a sticky, unescapable molasses."
"This funk-stuck-in-slow-motion points to an uncomfortable dread waiting below the surface."
"...the lumbering grooves at first seduce with their simplicity, then intoxicate with their richness, until finally the darker sound textures overtake you and drop you in a place you had not imagined before."
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