Kronos Quartet & Friends Meet Sun Ra — Outer Spaceways Incorporated
Qobuz new release review/Album of the Week, June 2024
The “Red Hot + Ra” series that the Red Hot Organization has shepherded into existence over 2023 and 2024 has turned out to be a low-key fount of groundbreaking excellence. While theoretically the albums have been “tributes” to Sun Ra, they have also been much more than that. Thematically driven, highly curated, and kaleidoscopically experimental, the “Red Hot + Ra” releases have been consistently exciting, allowing a range of artists to reconfigure Ra’s material (or create complementary material) in daring and loving ways. The fourth entry, Outer Spaceways Incorporated, demonstrates, as did its predecessors, that tribute albums need not be pro forma box-checking exercises filled with studio cast-offs and material unworthy of B-sides. Instead they can be exciting homages both to the music and the spirit of an artist as complex and enigmatic as Sun Ra.
Curated by Kronos Quartet, the group makes it abundantly clear from the very first notes that this will not be delicate, chamber music renditions of Ra’s most timeless melodies. The title track announces itself with overwhelming intensity: a cosmic string swell blending into overdriven, bloopy analog synths and a frenetic rap by Sun Ra, with Kronos and Georgia Ann Muldrow — whose singing voice was also the first one you heard on the first Red Hot + Ra release, Nuclear War — barreling through one of Ra’s catchiest numbers. While Muldrow doesn’t try to mimic June Tyson’s singing style, she does capture the longtime Arkestra vocalist’s warm, exploratory spirit, making this cut one of the closest to a “cover song” on the entire album.
From there, we’re definitely off into outer space, as Kronos and a wide range of collaborators use Ra’s original music more as occasional touch points to construct marvelous new works that resonate with Ra’s “vibrational affinities” (as he called them), rather than as mimicry. After all, when imagining a rendition of one of the Cosmic Rays’ ’50s doo-wop songs, perhaps the last version you’d envision would be a dreamy, sparkly slab of synth-ambience by Laraaji flecked with ghostly percussion, but that’s exactly what’s here, and it feels absolutely perfect. Similarly, when the album veers into hip-hop it takes a few sharp left turns; RP Boo and Armand Hammer’s “Blood Running High” leans less on Ra’s percussive material and instead culls samples from a lecture, while Moor Mother and DJ Haram team up for “Secrets of the Sun,” taking a Sun Ra album title and turning it into a glitched-out, poetic deconstruction of his entire ethos. Laurie Anderson is the most consistent presence throughout the recording (besides Kronos), turning up in three collaborations with Marshall Allen, one of which teams them up with Sex Mob for a jaunty, expanded take on “Images Suite.” The set also features notable performances by the likes of Trey Spruance & Secret Chiefs 3, Terry Riley, Jlin, and others, none of which sound like you’d expect them to, and all of which are stunning. An incredible addition to an already incredible series.
