Items in Basket: 0
Planets Of Life Or Death: Amiens 73 - Record Store Day Release

Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Research Arkestra

Planets Of Life Or Death: Amiens 73 - Record Store Day Release

Label: Strut

Genre: Jazz / Avant Garde

Availability

  • LP €21.99
    Out of Stock

Within their 1973 European tour, Sun Ra and his Arkestra had just
completed a residency at the legendary Gibus in Paris in October before
travelling to Amiens for a Sunday afternoon concert. Those filing into
the city’s Maison de la Culture that day would have little idea of the
intense, visceral experience that awaited them. “Sun Ra's use of the
Arkestra as his instrument in an onslaught of sound, colour and movement
stimulated and even shocked the senses and the shakras of audience
participants onto a higher plane of spirit consciousness,“ explains the
Arkestra’s Knoel Scott.

On Side 1, the session kicks off with the theatrical overture,
’Enlightenment’ as Sun Ra and vocalist June Tyson invite the audience to
“be of our space world“. Ra then moves into a rare instrumental version
of ’Love In Outer Space’, transforming the perennial Arkestra classic
into a raw, ritualistic experience: “this was a vehicle for the
Arkestra’s space dancers. Close your eyes and imagine them writhing
across the stage in celestial homage,“ explains Scott.

Side 2 of the album opens with the glistening ’Lights On A Satellite’, a
feature for the spiritual tenor sax of John Gilmore, playing in unison
with trumpeter Kwame Hadi. Closing track, the epic, chaotic, anxious
’Discipline 27-II / What Planet Is This’ moves from abstract, freeform
keyboard work from Sun Ra to a walking groove as Sun Ra and June Tyson
take a thinly veiled psychedelic swipe at life on earth: “If this is a
planet of life, why do people die here? “

Following 2014’s landmark compilation presented by Marshall Allen, ’In
the Orbit Of Ra’, Strut and Art Yard join forces once more for the first
release anywhere of  ’Planets Of Life Or Death’. Recorded direct from
the sound board and mastered from first generation reel to reel, the
title is exclusively available for Record Store Day 2015. The release
features rare photos from Sun Ra’s 1973 European tour by photographer
Jan Persson with sleeve notes by Knoel Scott.