Despite the fact that I don’t think I need to discover anything ‘new’ for at least 16 years now to give me time to absorb all the music I have come to know, I nevertheless find myself being a sucker for lists of other artists recommendations, even if I don’t really listen to the music of that artist in question. Case in point – the recent listed feature by Rhyton over at Dusted in Exile contains some good tunes, but it introduced me to this beautiful album by Kelan Phil Cohran, alumni from Sun Ra’s majestic school of thinking freely who composed this tribute after Sun Ra’s death.
I am at even more of a loss for words than is usual with this album. It is simply stunning. One of the albums I would play to any visiting alien as the an example of the superlative best that humanity can offer. Big words, I know, and I don’t usually like that sort of hyperbole. It sounds completely timeless, genre-less – a meditation on life, perhaps.
The nearest frame of reference I can give you from things that I know would be Alice Coltrane, perhaps the Journey in Satchidananda, which I have just discovered features Pharoah Sanders, whose work I cannot recommend too much – if this cosmic jazz vibe that I’m laying on you is to your taste then seek out his work too.
The CD is available here, although you can’t actually listen to any of it there which is odd for bandcamp. Maybe a licensing thing. So here’s another youtube:
Soundbergs 