Search - Sun Ra & His Astro Infinity Arkestra :: Pathways to Unknown Worlds / Friendly Love

Sun Ra & His Astro Infinity Arkestra
Pathways to Unknown Worlds / Friendly Love
Genres: Jazz, Pop

Track Listings (8) - Disc #1
1. Pathways To Unknown Worlds
2. Untitled
3. Extension Out
4. Cosmo-Media
5. Friendly Love I
6. Friendly Love II
7. Friendly Love III
8. Friendly Love IV

CD Details

All Artists: Sun Ra & His Astro Infinity Arkestra
Title: Pathways to Unknown Worlds / Friendly Love
Members Wishing: 2
Total Copies: 0
Label: Evidence
Release Date: 9/26/2000
Album Type: Original recording remastered
Genres: Jazz, Pop
Styles: Avant Garde & Free Jazz, Swing Jazz
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 730182221824

Synopsis

Amazon.com

This CD consists of two Sun Ra LPs from 1973. The first was briefly available as an Impulse record, while the latter has never been released in any form. Both consist of guided improvisations in which Sun Ra cued the group's entries and combinations, creating multilevel performances with remarkable shifts in density and unusual play with sound. The title track of Pathways opens with a set of acoustic contrasts provided by bass clarinet, oboe, and muted trumpet that Sun Ra expands and shifts with mini-Moog and an electric keyboard vibraphone. Elsewhere, almost ambient keyboard parts collide with blistering saxophone solos so overblown and distorted that they might be played through guitar pedals. On Friendly Love, the preoccupation with unusual tonal mixtures extends even further, encompassing bizarre sound sources that emphasize the lowest frequencies. The "space dimension mellophone" played by Akh Tal Ebah on "Friendly Love II" has a bassoon reed inserted in the mouthpiece; the "Neptunian libiflecto" is a bassoon fitted with the mouthpiece of a brass instrument. And Eloe Omoe's contra-alto clarinet is pitched lower than a bass. It's Sun Ra in some of the deepest recesses of space, creating oddly somber and meditative music that's suddenly traversed by moments of strange light or almost conventional lyricism. --Stuart Broomer

CD Reviews

Don't judge by the cover!

C. Moon | Valley Village, CA | 02/08/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Evidence, after a very lengthy gap in their Sun Ra reissue program has returned to the scene with an amazingly essential batch of releases--enough to make any Ra fan salavate at the thought. Pathways To Unknown Worlds/Friendly Love pairs an album that appeared briefly on Impulse and another that has never been issued before, while two other albums planned for impulse are documented on the sister CD issue, 'The Great Lost Sun Ra albums'(Cymbals and Crystal Spears.) What makes these reissues amazing is that very little of Ra's 70's work (save a few live performances and the soundtrack to Space is the Place) have been available.Fortunately, Evidence has treated us to more than a stale documentary. These are some fantastic out recordings by Ra and his arkestra that are really no less monumental than his classic 60 exploratory works like Atlantis and Magic City, but posess what to my ears sound like a greater foundation in free jazz, where the former could be compared to nothing in jazz or any other format. For some that might mean a slightly more approachable presentation, but it certainly isn't any less demanding. On this and the 'great lost' album, the arkestra experiment with new ways to make noise--whether it be combining horn mouth-pieces with the body of a reed instrument, or Sun Ra body-surfing on his keyboard. In short, while these are indeed some new and deeply rewarding recordings, don't expect Sun Ra to stop being Sun Ra. Its more of the same, but who's complaining?"