A triumphant edition of one of the most implacable, mysterious, rumbustiously creative albums in the entire Saturn catalogue.
The three tracks comprising the original LP are remastered from tape, doing away with the distortion which has dogged all previous issues. The four additional recordings here are previously unreleased, including two more from the first sessions, and a live performance circa 1967, with Ra leading strange strings on clavinet, and finally a demonstration by Ra of the ‘plaintive’ expressiveness of the Ukrainian bandura.
With excellent notes, including a new essay by David Toop.

‘When I say space music, I’m dealing with the void, because that is of space, too; but I’m dealing with the outer void rather than the inner void, because somehow man is trapped into playing roles into the haven or heaven of the inner void… the word space is a synonym for a multi-dimension of different things other than what people might at present think it means. So I leave the word space open, like space is supposed to be.’

‘If you play it right time, you’re wrong,’ Sun Ra once instructed his Arkestra. ‘I told you, it’s designed for sound.’

From the original Saturn Research publicity flyer for Strange Strings: ‘Too many people are following the past. In this new space age this is dangerous… It is no accident that those who die are said to have passed since those who have PASSED are PAST.’

‘In 1971 Ra accepted a lectureship at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a class titled The Black Man and the Cosmos. This course of study was held in some secrecy, apparently open exclusively to Black students who were strictly forbidden to record the lectures. Ra’s assistants did, however, document the sessions, and some of these recordings have made their way to YouTube. The incredible half-hour of Berkeley Lecture presented here, however, is previously unknown, extracted from the Creative Audio Archive’s extensive holdings. It presents Ra walking his students through a series of wonderful paradoxes and riddles, the sound of his chalk on the chalkboard serving as a kind of Greek chorus, commenting on or complementing his highly creative pedagogy. At the end of the lecture, Ra performs two musical demonstrations, the first a piano version of the Arkestra classic Love in Outer Space, followed by a blistering 16-minute solo on the Moog synthesizer.’

Joyous, uniquely Arkestral renditions of songs from Disney films like Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Dumbo, and Mary Poppins.
Ra loved this repertoire, faithfully re-visiting it over the decades. He once had his band billed as Sun Ra & His Disney Odyssey Adventure Arkestra.

All previously unissued; drawn from concert performances, 1985-1990.

Beautifully presented in die-cut, screen-printed jackets, with printed inner sleeves.
‘Two versions of one of Ra’s most enduring compositions. The classic take featuring vocals by David Henderson, and an alternate instrumental version never before released on vinyl, featuring the almighty John Gilmore on the drum kit!’
Tiny run.

Sensational price for easily the most outstanding release on RSD 2025, imperiously superseding Shandar’s selection of edits. 

The Arkestra at its magnificent peak, in its very first performances outside North America (complete with dancers, light-shows, and psychedelic projections of New York and Chicago, moon rockets, Egyptian Gods and plumed African warriors).
‘Plenty of fiery avant-garde action,’ notes Daniel Spicer in The Quietus. ‘Much of this emanates from Ra’s solo interludes. On piano, he remains a suis generis genius of spontaneous creation, drifting from wistful melodic daydreams to sudden irruptions of violent intensity and back again.
‘Around this time, at the turn of the 1970s, he had also begun his tumultuous explorations of the recently purchased Moog synthesizer. Here, Ra approaches the synth not as an electric guitar substitute, as contemporaries such as The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Jan Hammer were then doing, but as a furious generator of alien sounds and timbres as though beamed in from some far galactic outpost. There are also group improvisations of boiling energy – often conducted by Ra using a lexicon of theatrical gestures – which forge ahead into the most coruscating free jazz, with saxophonists John Gilmore and Marshall Allen straining at the horn’s limits.
‘And yet, for all that, the shows were approachable, enjoyable and, above all, fun. Across the four hours of music, a wide range of moods are touched upon. There are the many anthemic songs and chants – such as Satellites Are Spinning and We Travel The Spaceways – delivered in vocalist June Tyson’s sweet, down-home tones with enthusiastically ragged call-and-response choruses by the rest of the Arkestra spelling out Ra’s sci-fi philosophy. There are wafting space-ballads; muscular, big band hard-bop workouts; and percussion-heavy rainforest modal jams. Each of the two evening programmes feels like a meandering yet comprehensive journey into the deepest recesses of Ra’s imagination, calling in on all his obsessions and preoccupations.’

‘New and archival recordings all orbiting around the intergalactic soundscape introduced by Sun Ra. Ra’s own a capella I Don’t Believe in Love, recorded by Ra at home in Chicago during the 1950s, kicks the program off. This intimate private recording is followed by two intense new solo improvisations by French guitarist Raymond Boni, one acoustic and one electric, inspired by seeing the Arkestra preparing for a gig in Arles in 1976. The first side wraps up with Jason Adasiewicz’s riveting unaccompanied vibraphone workout on Ra’s Lanquidity and Where Pathways Meet. With a completely different take on Lanquidity, Side Two begins with four wild remixes by legendary Cologne techno pioneer Wolfgang Voigt, using layered samples from the LP. Hailing from the intersection of free jazz and out rock, Ken Vandermark’s band Spaceways Inc., with bassist Nate McBride and drummer Hamid Drake, continue with a Ra medley, in collaboration with the Italian band Zu. And where the program started in disbelief, love-skepticism, it concludes with Joe McPhee’s emphatic loving embrace on Cosmic Love, a classic tenor/synth sound-on-sound recording from 1970.’
With cover art by Emil Schult, who designed classic 1970s LPs for Kraftwerk. Very limited.

Top-notch, super-soulful rocksteady.
With an alternate take.

Jackie Bernard leading a thumping, yearning overture; backed with The Valentines’ classic Blam Blam Fever. Top-notch rock steady.