Here’s a cool idea: Get a bunch of electronic music producers and DJs in the same room with some cool guest vocalists and tell them to put their spins on the music of Sun Ra. What do you get? This cool compilation called When There Is No Sun.
Starting with Underground Resistance‘s funky, bumpy take on “When Angels Speak,” the addition of vocals by poet / musician / filmmaker Saul Williams drops you into the groove right away. “When angels speak, they speak of cosmic waves of sound,” Williams says, and you know he’s right. SHE Spells Doom joins up with the Sun Ra Arkestra for a remix of “Somebody Else’s Idea.” The muted, looped horn section provides an interesting groove that seems to cast a long look around the room and invite people into another party at the back.
House music heavyweight Chez Damier teams up with Ben Vedren and poet Anthony Joseph on the “H2H Kora mix” of “The Three Dimensions of Air.” The looping hand percussion beats, bouncing synth notes, and distant trumpet sounds create a hypnotic effect when they combine with Joseph’s vocals. Calibre creates a drum and bass (his specialty) remix of “Chopin.”
Ricardo Villalobos “Earlier Than Late” remix (version 2) of “I Have Forgotten” is a mesmerizing track with odd sounds that resemble something you’d hear in a haunted house movie score if the house had a rave happening in the cemetery next door. Tunde Adebimpe joins Damier and Vedren on the H2H remix of “The Endless Realm.” It’s instantly danceable, as well as enlightening. It’s a house music Zen lesson on the joy of non-attachment.
Underground Resistance and Williams return for their soulful take on “The Outer Darkness.” The first version of Villalobo’s “Earlier Than Late” remix of “I Have Forgotten” bubbles and pops like some kind of sentient ooze. Baris K and poet Abiodun Oyewole‘s riff on “Somebody Else’s Idea” is a house / trip hop / psych-dance track that has a sweet beat throughout the whole thing.
A Guy Called Gerald and poet Mahogany L. Browne‘s version of “Message to Black Youth” is simple and profound, as is Calibre’s ambient remix of “Chopin.” The album ends with the return of SHE Spells Doom’s remix of “Portrait of the Living Sky. It’s a cool house track, with emphasis on the “cool” part. It gives off this feeling of partying outside the dance club with all the cooler people who got rejected at the door.
This is a slick compilation that you can play at your house party, your chill room, or in your car late nights. You’ll want to hear it everywhere.
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to Sam at Pitch Perfect PR.]