Browse by Artist: SUN RA & HIS SOLAR ARKESTRA

Artist:	SUN RA & HIS SOLAR ARKESTRA
Title:	Wake Up Angels
Label:	ART YARD (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	ARTYARD 012CD

Subtitled: Live At The Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1972-73-74. "Recorded live at the Ann Arbor Blues And Jazz Festival 1972-73-74. The classic big band with a full complement of singers, Tracks 1-10 (1972) feature the great Space is the Place Suite. After the first few minutes the sound is surprisingly good with great drums throughout; crystal clear. Presence and excitement are well captured, along with some blistering Ra electronics and the crowd cheering everyone on. A bass solo even: rare event. Tracks 11-18 (1973) roll straight on winding up with the long declamatory, dramaturgical, chant that gives this set its title and, so far as I know, appears here for the first time. Extensive notes by John Sinclair."

Artist:	SUN RA & HIS SOLAR ARKESTRA
Title:	Secrets Of The Sun
Label:	ATAVISTIC
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	ALP 266CD

"A superb reissue of a mind-numbingly rare Saturn Records document from '62 -- with a previously-unreleased 17-minute track. All available for the first time on CD! Secrets Of The Sun is one of the last great early '60s Saturn LPs to be reissued and is one of his classic early New York releases. So rare that it is barely known even by hard-nosed Ra collectors, it contains music related in approach, acoustics, and arrangement to the more widely-heard material on Out There A Minute (Blast First). From a fertile period in Ra's oeuvre, the 'Solar' years, this group is more loose-limbed and ragged than the Chicago bands, and considerably more edgy. To augment this reissue of Secrets Of The Sun, we have included a track that was originally designed to be the B-side of another Saturn record (catalog number 547, a great mystery among Ra-o-philes), a production that was slated but never issued. Tracking in at the length of an LP side, 'Flight To Mars' comes from the same period exactly, with an extremely unusual tape-collage introduction, spliced onto a tremendously swinging, aggressive feature for drums and extended solos all around. Needless to say, it's an honor and pleasure to finally issue this music after it had rested so long in the can. Perhaps you'll agree that it's only gotten better with age. A well-kept secret indeed." --John Corbett, Chicago/July, 2008.

Artist:	SUN RA & HIS SOLAR ARKESTRA
Title:	On Jupiter (Deluxe Edition)
Label:	KS ART YARD SERIES (NETHERLANDS)
Format:	LP
Price:	$23.50
Catalog #:	KSAY 004LP

Whatever it was that sparked Sun Ra to investigate the funk between 1976 and 1979, we should all be thankful that he did. Having explored dreamy, languid rhythms before ‐- with off‐key arrangements and chants on records like New Steps, Lanquidity, Of Mythic Worlds, and Disco 3000 -‐ On Jupiter, originally released in 1979, sees Sun Ra really flexing his funk muscles, stretching the group like a rubber band. Blissful, flanged guitar threads its way throughout the title track, and Ra throws up piano chords and vamps all over an upfront, but fragmented bass pulse. But while the Arkestra might be getting their oblique grind on in the rhythm section, the music still carries those cosmic messages from the stars. Just as Ra transplanted the big band traditions of Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington into his own cosmic vision, here he takes the backbeat of funk and disco, and teleports it into another dimension. Despite revamping the current musical trends, the emotional core of this LP is something that Sun Ra never forgot. There is a story that when they were rehearsing ["UFO"], some of the musicians complained when Sonny asked them to listen to examples of currently popular disco records: "This is some hokey shit, Sonny," they said. "This hokey shit is somebody's hopes and dreams," he chided them. "Don't be so hip!" Something else to note on this singular LP is the way it has been mixed. Michael Ray, the horn player, was sent back to the Arkestra base by Sun Ra during the mixing session, and returned with "a handful of tapes," with which he then dubbed all kinds of percussion, guitar, and vocals into the studio mix ‐- bringing another ghostly, spacey element to the layers. This album stands out in one of Sun Ra's most exciting creative periods, and it's incredible to think of Ra, then in his mid‐'60s, still pushing the group to further heights, and taking no prisoners. As he chants on "UFO": "I know you got a hiding place, somewhere deep in outer space! Watch out!" Housed in a heavy, rigid outer sleeve and pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Includes a printed inner sleeve with pictures. Limited to 500 copies.

Artist:	SUN RA & HIS SOLAR ARKESTRA
Title:	Art Forms Of Dimensions Tomorrow
Label:	SATURN
Format:	LP
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SATURN 9956

Classic Chicago Saturn release, issued in 1965, recorded at the Choreographers' Workshop, all but the last two tracks in the basement (where Ra liked the piano sound). Recorded in New York 1961/1962. Tracklisting: Cluster of Galaxies, Solar Drums , The Outer Heavens, Infinity of the Universe, Lights on a Satellite, Kosmos in Blue. Featuring: "Cluster of Galaxies", "Ankh", "Solar Drums", "The Outer Heavens", "Infinity of the Universe", "Lights on a Satellite", "Kosmos In Blue". With futuristic space interludes that are mindblowing... "This music, performed by a jazz band in the early 1960's, predates Syd Barrett, and occurred long before Tangerine Dream's Electronic Meditations. But you will swear you are listening to a lost Kraut/psych classic inspired by both of these. 'Solar Drums' is everyone in the band grabbing a percussion instrument except for the man behind the recording desk, who plunges everyone into a swirl of echo until they tip and tremble off each other luminescently, plinking brightly in the dark...one of the most amazing documents of Sun Ra's foresight. In these two recordings he anticipated - created? - psychedelic music." -- Happy Dog Potatohead.

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