2LP - Sun Ra - Strange Voltage

2LP - Import - Frosted Orange vinyl

These tracks capture Ra's electronic peregrinations during the 1970s and '80s. The Arkestra occasionally makes a cameo appearance but Ra commands the spotlight, not so much composing music as painting soundscapes with electronic keyboards. On frosted orange vinyl!

In the collection we've titled Stray Voltage, Ra is not so much composing music as painting soundscapes with electronic keyboards. Ra doesn't simply play these consoles — he attacks, cajoles, and pounds them. He upends and transports them where they weren't built to go. Sometimes they fracture under his assault. He steers them into the zone of intimacy and combat. They emit whirrs, hums, jolts and squiggles, crowned by explosions. Ra's repertoire includes feedback, distortion, torrents, and mysterious beeps from far-off planets. With one keystroke Ra could trigger a sonic apocalypse.

These performances might sound like they were generated by machines, but there was a robed wizard at the controls. Ra turns this musical circuitry into compressors and transformers, dynamos and turbines. He updates George Antheil for the Space Age.

These works also have the character of soundtracks for non-existent films. There is tension and mystery, chaos and disorientation. There are ominous crescendos, futuristic forebodings, and thematic non sequiturs. Animation, science fiction, surrealistic noir — listen to these works with your eyes shut, or in a darkened room, and imagine the action.

On these tracks there's music redefined, science repurposed — and journeys into the cosmic darkness. Some call it noise. Noise can be music too. It might not sound like earthly music, but that's because Space Pilot Sun Ra intended to take you on a pangalactic excursion, for which he created the mixtape.

Label: Modern Harmonic
Quantity: 1000