Sun Ra - Lanquidity (1978)

This one is for Zhao of the Different Waters blog. It's a rather unique affair among Sun Ra's endless list of releases: fusion-inspired and with colorful, stunning arrangement details, it features two electric guitars, heavenly glockenspiels, spacy keyboards, electronic effects and -above all - some of the greatest basslines and riffs that ever graced an album from our favorite traveller of the Spaceways.

The song of a sweet wailing oboe duet, underscored with lovely electric piano twinkling, makes for a good spaced out opening, introducing a strange relaxedness that stays with us for the whole record.The big-bandish "Where Pathways Meet" with its catchy brass theme sounds like an outtake from David Shire's "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" soundtrack - gripping, funky, but still with an alien feel.

The first bars of "Twin Stars Of Thence" were sampled by U.N.K.L.E. (James Lavelle & Tim Goldsworthy) for their 1994 double EP "The Time Has Come" from MoWax, a seminal piece of British Trip Hop. Maybe Sun Ra intended the polyrhythmic backing of two delayed guitar licks to illustrate the pulsations of a twin star system, contrasting it with melancholic lines from a slightly de-tuned oboe. The effect is quite outlandish. Later on, there's a fantastic baritone sax solo - this could very well be the background music for a nightclub scene from "Shaft in Space", if there was such a movie.
The record closes with a cosmic lullaby: "There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of)", a very slow, dreamy melody sung by a drowsy chorus of hypnotic voices, roamimg freely through an intergalactic vortex of echoes and phasings, before it drifts into the infinite realm of Outer-Nothingness. Wooosh...

"Advanced Lounge Music" I'd call this. All in all - and not to forget the brilliant multi-facet percussion arrangements with softly pounding timpani throughout - it's a must-listen, so download it now.

Inside the sleeve, a return postcard

1 Lanquidity
2 Where Pathways Meet
3 That's How I Feel
4 Twin Stars Of Thence
5 There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of)

Sun Ra - organ, piano, electric piano, ARP synthesizer, Mini Moog, Crumar electronic keyboard, orchestra bells, Ethnic Voice

Richard Williams - bass
James Jacson - bassoon, flute, oboe, Ethnic Voice
Elo Omoe - bass clarinet, flute
Artaukatune - congas, timpani
Dale Williams, Disco Kid - guitars
Luqman Ali , Michael Anderson - percussion
Marshall Allen - alto sax, oboe, flute
Julian Presley - baritone sax
Danny Thompson - baritone sax, flute
John Gilmore - tenor sax
Eddie Gale - trumpet
Michael Ray - trumpet, flugelhorn
Edde Tahmahs & June Tyson - Ethnic Voices
produced by Sun Ra

Lossless FLAC: (1) (2) (3)

(cleaned up a bunch of nasty scratches on the vinyl, too)

[maybe reposted soon]