Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Sun Ra - Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy/Art Forms Of Dimensions Tomorrow (USA 1967/1965

The Sun Ra Discography latest arrival.






 "Art Forms...",  was recorded some time in 61/62', "...Tones..."in 63" and is a pretty difficult listen at times and is very percussion based with a much smaller group of players than many earlier recordings. The music is quite different but I grows with familiarity and I am appreciating it more so now than I did when I reviewed this Evidence release some time back. Some tracks do seem to meander along quite pointlessly at times and so can be difficult to stay with but overall I am growing to appreciate its weirdness as I grow more familiar with it. "Adventure Equation"(Names after Yotte's excellent Sun Ra Blog(Haha))is my favourite track from this set but it did degenerate a bit towards the end. "Moon Dance" is also cool. 
The earlier "Art Forms..." kicks off with a short piece of ambient/percussive weirdness that fits quite well with the later recordings before we get slightly more conventional in a jazzy way on some of the later tracks but interspersed with the heavily reverbed percussive tracks. These two albums actually fit very well together and was a good combination by Evidence. Still gone now are the earlier big band swing numbers with much more melody and rhythm and we are well into the far out Ra musical universe, which is far more challenging no less rewarding with dedicated listening. Rating for this release 3.5/5.    

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