Sun Ra and the Arkestra played a week of eleven concerts at the Detroit Jazz Center. The shows were organized and soundboard recorded by Rick Steiger (a collaborator of John Sinclair). On New Year's Eve the Arkestra performed nearly a hundred Sun Ra compositions in three different sets. Remastered from the original cassette soundboard recordings by Christopher Eddy. Limited edition of 500 copies, originally a 28 cd-r set from 2007 in an edition of 400.

Sun Ra was a true innovator, releasing music that was a bit different to his peers from his earliest output. But what would Sun Ra have made of today’s music scene? If he is looking down from his cosmic realm, he’ll be pleased to know that his music from the past still sounds eerily futuristic. Recorded in just one day, on October 10, 1961, The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra features 11 tracks. Among the selections is the Latin-influenced opener, “Bassism,” the bluesy “Of Sounds and Something Else,” and the aptly named, “What’s That?,” which breaks into a four-saxophone improvisation, stands out as an example of Ra’s early experimental work.

In the '50s, pianist Martin Denny was playing a residency at an open-air nightclub in Hawaii when he and his band (including Arthur Lyman on vibraphone, Augie Colón on percussion, and John Kramer on bass) began incorporating the sounds of nature into their songs (Colón had a knack for emulating bird calls), as well as embracing melodies and arrangements influenced by the sounds of the Pacific and the Far East. Denny and his combo landed a record deal for their unique music, and the song "Quiet Village" became a major pop hit in 1958, kicking off a new style of music that was dubbed "exotica" for its use of unconventional sounds and moods. Denny was a common presence on the sales charts for the next several years, and this box set features eight albums by Denny on four CDs (two albums on each disc) chronicling his most popular and productive period. Eight Classic Albums includes the albums Exotica (1958), Exotica 2 (1958), Forbidden Island (1958), Primitiva (1958), Exotica 3 (1959), The Enchanted Sea (1960), Exotic Percussion (1960), and Romantica (1961).

Although he is best known for lounge-oriented film scores like Svezia Inferno E Paradiso and Angeli Bianchi…Angeli Neri, Italian composer Piero Umiliani was also a prolific composer of easy listening pop. His finest effort in this vein was To-Day's Sound, a 1971 instrumental double album. This adventurous undertaking manages to justify its length by dishing up 21 tight, punchy instrumentals that mix lounge, jazz, easy listening, and pop hooks in equal measure. To-Day's Sound is also notable because it incorporates the then-new Moog synthesizer into a large number of its tracks. Indeed, the fast-paced samba of "Caretera Panamerica" and the mellow jazziness of "Coast to Coast" get added sonic kick from the thick but artfully integrated synthesizer textures that layer their arrangements. Another one of the Moog-oriented tunes, "Lady Magnolia," has become a favorite of remixers on the modern lounge music scene thanks to its effective combination of funky rhythms and bubbly synthesizer lines.

Lounge Psychédélique takes you on a journey into the world of Lounge, Exotica and Space Age Bachelor Pad Music, from its early days in the 1950s and 1960s to the current crop of artists championing the Lounge and Exotica sounds today. Compiled by Spencer Hickman and Mark McQuillan for Two-Piers Lounge Psychédélique (The Best of Lounge and Exotica 1954-2022) is the third instalment in the Psychédélique Compilation series on Two-Piers, following the critically acclaimed Pop Psychédélique (The Best of French Psychedelic Pop 1964-2019) and Garage Psychédélique (The Best of Garage Psych and Pzyk Rock 1965-2019).

A celestial journey is what Sun Ra and His Arkestra created with Space is the Place. Sun Ra’s opus, at its simplest, is a trip through outer-bound melodies, planetary bodies, eras in time, crystals, and space caravans. You will be transported a world away!

When first released in 1959, PERSUASIVE PERCUSSION was probably the first to put stereo discs on the map bringing to light the startling and innovative musical aspects of stereo sound on records. The music was brilliantly recorded and arranged with great imagination and infinite care to bring out the whole spectrum of sound on one's stereo equipment. Originated and produced by Enoch Light, the album presented an entirely new concept in the recording of percussion instruments performed by Terry Snyder and The All Stars which included talent such as Tony Mottola, Dick Hyman and Willie Rodriguez.

Two CD set. Four albums plus bonus tracks from the master of exotica Martin Denny. Mono reproductions of the key albums that launched the space age bachelor pad music trend in the late 1950s. Complete with bird calls, deranged percussion, super cool vibes and Denny's distinctive piano. Including a host of hit records that launched a thousand copyists and ensured that the tiki trend, easy listening and the call of the islands would blossom. Featuring the super expensive (if you seek them out on vinyl) original mono mixes. It was 1957, down in Hawaii; some jazz guys had come in to take up the slack at the bar, playing subtle cool sounds while people drank and talked. It was the Hawaiian Village Hotel in Wakiki. The room was filled with palm trees and bamboo curtains, it was a sanctuary in the madness of the place, a stopping off point for the weary traveller, a refuge from reality. The band did long stints, fuelled by the free bar; the exotic setting slowly infused itself into their music, got under their skin. What started as a few bird calls amid the scraped percussion, shuffling drums, tinkling piano and offset vibes soon became the signature sound of the bar. The "sound effects", created by the players, increased and through chance, misfortune, rum and possibly initially boredom, exotica was born.

Strut present the final instalment in their series of reissues of Sun Ra’s historic recordings in Egypt with The Sun Ra Arkestra meets Salah Ragab in Egypt plus the Cairo Jazz Band, originally released on Greek label Praxis in 1983. Salah Ragab first encountered the Arkestra at a concert at the house of Goethe Institut ex-pat Hartmut Geerken during the Arkestra’s first visit to Cairo and Heliopolis in December 1971 and, although Ra and Ragab did not meet in person on that occasion, they did meet and bond together when Ra returned to Egypt in 1983, resulting in these recordings. The Arkestra had been touring Europe in March 1983 and made their way to Cairo, playing a number of concerts during April at the Il Capo / Il Buco venue before recording the two superb studio versions of Ragab compositions, ‘Egypt Strut’ and ‘Dawn’, at El Nahar Studios in Heliopolis in May, featuring Salah Ragab on congas.

Now-Again Records, in conjunction with Jazzman Records, presents an expanded version of the compilation that introduced many listeners to the sound of the unsung musicians who, in the midst of the Vietnam War and the fallout of the Civil Rights struggle, created some of the most beautiful spiritual and meditative music of the era. The music was at times funky, at times contemplative, but it always strived to say something about the world in which the musicians lived.

In early 1973, thanks to the intrepid persuasion of jazz producer Ed Michel, Sun Ra signed a licensing agreement with the prestigious jazz imprint Impulse (then part of ABC/Paramount Records) to reissue catalog titles from Ra's proprietary Saturn label, as well as some new Arkestra recordings. Michel had produced Ra's most commercially successful album, Space is the Place, in 1972 for Blue Thumb Records, and he figured Ra was finally primed for a wider Earthly audience. The Impulse deal struck with Ra and manager Alton Abraham specified a cap of 50 albums — ten annually for five years — although all masters were subject to approval by Impulse and theoretically less than 50 could be issued.

A celestial journey is just what Sun Ra and his Arkestra have created with Space is the Place. Sun Ra’s opus is at its simplest, a trip through outer bound melodies! Planetary bodies, eras in time, crystals, space caravans… Allow yourself to envision or feel a world away! Featuring an album's worth of previously unissued recordings from the same soundtrack sessions! These newly discovered tracks are heavy on the prose of Sun Ra, as he and June Tyson bestow countless bits of information and inspiration onto the listener.

For more than two decades, the disciple that has most visibly carried on Sun Ra Arkestra’s legacy and sound is their musical director, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, the iconic fire breather and life force that restored the Arkestra’s vitality in the massive vacuum left by Ra and John Gilmore’s death in the ‘90s. Allen turned 98 in 2022 and, as evidenced by Living Sky, his influence and leadership remain undiminished. Marking the Arkestra’s first new recording since their 2021 Grammy-nominated album Swirling, Living Sky was recorded on June 15, 2021 at Rittenhouse SoundWorks in Philadelphia and features a total of nineteen musicians, including a strings section. It was mixed and mastered by three-time Grammy winner Dave Darlington (Eddie Palmieri, Brian Lynch, Wayne Shorter).

Jazz Dispensary’s RSD favourite compilation series is back with exploration into the furthest depths of outer space, and one’s mind. Features moon shots by Flora Purim, Mongo Santamaría, Barbara Lewis and more.

Whether in its original serial form in the 1940s, in the low-budget films of the 1950s, in the television series of the 1960s, or even in the overgrown re-imaginings for blockbuster movies in the 1970s and beyond, the science-fiction genre on film (and videotape) has always had something cheesy about it, and that is part of its appeal. Even when the technical wizards at director George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic are dreaming up the next Star Wars movie, there is, at heart, a sense of the earliest, silliest versions of the genre still present. In that spirit come Neil Norman's souped-up and synthesized treatments of the various scores for sci-fi films and TV series.