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Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s devotion to spirituality was the central purpose of the final four decades of her life, an often-overlooked awakening that largely took shape during her four-year marriage to John Coltrane and after his 1967 death. By 1983, Alice had established the 48-acre Sai Anantam Ashram outside of Los Angeles. She quietly began recording music from the ashram, releasing it within her spiritual community in the form of private press cassette tapes. On May 5, Luaka Bop will release the first-ever compilation of recordings from this period, making these songs available to the wider public for the first time. Entitled ‘World Spirituality Classics, Volume 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda,’ the release is the first installment in a planned series of spiritual music from around the globe; curated, compiled and distributed by Luaka Bop.
This powerful, largely unheard body of work finds Alice singing for the first time in her recorded catalog, which dates back to 1963 and includes appearances on six John Coltrane albums, alongside Charlie Haden and McCoy Tyner, and 14 albums as bandleader starting with her Impulse! debut in 1967 with ‘A Monastic Trio.’ The songs featured on the Luaka Bop release have been culled from the four cassettes that Alice recorded and released between 1982 and 1995: ‘Turiya Sings,’ ‘Divine Songs,’ ‘Infinite Chants,’ and ‘Glorious Chants.’ The digital, cassette and CD release will feature eight songs. The double-vinyl edition features two additional songs, “Krishna Japaye” from 1990’s ‘Infinite Chants, and the previously unreleased “Rama Katha” from a separate ‘Turiya Sings’ recording session.
Luaka Bop teamed with Alice’s children to find the original master tapes in the Coltrane archive. The recordings were prepared for re-mastering by the legendary engineer Baker Bigsby (Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, John Coltrane), who had overseen the original sessions in the 80s and 90s. The compilation showcases a diverse array of recordings in addition to Alice’s first vocal work: solo performances on her harp, small ensembles, and a 24-piece vocal choir. The release is dotted with eastern percussion, synthesizers, organs and strings, making for a mesmerizing, even otherworldly, listen. Alice was inspired by Vedic devotional songs from India and Nepal, adding her own music sensibility to the mix with original melodies and sophisticated song structures. She never lost her ability to draw from the bebop, blues and old-time spirituals of her Detroit youth, fusing a Western upbringing with Eastern classicism. In all, these recordings amount to a largely untold chapter in the life story of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda.
In addition to the recordings, GRAMMY-winning music historian Ashley Kahn has written extensive liner notes on the collection. The package also includes a series of interviews with those who knew Alice best, conducted by Dublab’s Mark “Frosty” McNeill, and an as-told-to interview between musician Surya Botofasina (who was raised on Alice’s ashram) and journalist Andy Beta. 2017 marks what would have been Alice’s 80th year of life, as well as the 10th anniversary of her passing. Alice will be celebrated at events throughout the United States, Europe and South America in the coming year. With this in mind, the time is right to bring this meaningful piece of Turiyasangitananda’s legacy into focus.
Paris, 1978. Don Cherry walks into a French studio with a suitcase full of instruments nobody expected and meets Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan for the first time. No rehearsal, no plan, just two musicians who recognize each other immediately as kindred spirits. What happens next is one of Cherry's best efforts - an album only hardcore fans know about, recorded in Paris, released only in France in 1981, disappeared, and now back again in a special edition that demands attention. This is what "world music" should have been before the term got watered down into airport lounge background noise.
Don Cherry - the man who stood next to Ornette Coleman in Los Angeles and New York, playing trumpet and cornet through the birth of Free Jazz, that final structural revolution of American improvisation based on melody rather than harmony. But Cherry never stopped there. He had a voracious musical appetite and boundless imagination that pulled him toward India, Brazil, Africa, Indonesia, China - not as a tourist collecting sounds, but with deep personal engagement. His commitment ran deeper than novelty. This wasn't about exotic decoration. This was about a global vision of art and the human condition.
Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan - Delhi gharana lineage, new generation tabla master who extended what his predecessors had built, gained recognition as a soloist, ventured onto the international scene. Irregular rhythmic patterns, highly syncopated, rich in variety and originality. The kind of percussionist who could grasp Cherry's intentions immediately, warm up his fingers at astonishing speed, tune Cherry's entire diverse instrument collection - concert piano, Hammond B3 organ, chromatic orchestral timpani - with perfect pitch and no hesitation.
They had never met before the recording session. But they recognized each other immediately. Calm, focused, full of laughter. Cherry knew what he wanted to create. Latif posed no challenge - he was the answer. The result is an incredible mixture of jazz and Indian music that doesn't feel like mixture at all - it feels like the music that was always supposed to exist when these two worlds met at the right moment with the right people. Not fusion for fusion's sake. Not "exotic instruments" as decoration. This is two masters speaking the same language for the first time and realizing they'd been having the same conversation in different rooms for years.
Recorded 1978 in Paris. Released only in France in 1981. Disappeared. Forgotten except by those who knew. First reissued by Honest Jon's years ago. Now back in special edition format because some records refuse to stay buried.
Essential for anyone who thinks Don Cherry's best work ended with Ornette, or that "world music" has to choose between authenticity and imagination. This is both. This is neither. This is what happens when boundaries dissolve because they were never really there.
This double LP of instrumental Hindustani, Carnatic and folk 78rpm shellac records from India comes with a full color 12-page insert of gramophone record ephemera, shops, labels, manufacturing details and graphics. The LPs feature over 25 artists recorded between 1904 and 1959 playing a panoply of instruments: jalatarang, dilruba, sarod, clarionet, pakhawaj, violin, been, kazoo, shehnai, tabla, sarangi, sitar, vina and more. Artists include Imdad Khan (the first sitarist ever recorded), Ahmedjan Thirkhawa, Bundu Khan, Amir Hussain, Allauddin Khan (who taught Ravi Shankar), and others both forgotten and revered. The Indian classical instrumental tradition is one of incredible proficiency and expressiveness using instruments and techniques created over generations that seem to perfectly and uniquely compliment Indian culture, landscape and tradition. Sympathetic strings resonate inside sitars and sarangis to manifest shimmering reverberant spiritual spaces; horns, reeds and flutes extend the range, volume and melodic inventiveness of the voice; a mind-boggling array of elaborately turned percussion instruments allow for rhythms as complex or as simple as the flowing Ganges river. Classical music in India was perhaps at its height during the 78rpm period as the raj era was ending and the world was globalizing. 2-LP gatefold with 12 page full-color booklet insert - features never reissued recordings and is the long-anticipated follow up to the Indian Talking Machine book/CD (Sublime Frequencies 099), which was also produced by Robert Millis from his collection of 78rpm records and ephemera.
Nearly a decade ago, music fans were entranced by a viral clip of two young women playing improvisatory music on mandolin. The video quickly made the rounds across the Internet, with viewers drawn to their virtuosic performances on the small instruments. Known as the Mandolin Sisters, the duo’s mesmerizing skill integrated the rippling resonances of the mandolin within the ever-deep world of Carnatic music — a journey of sound that made time melt away.
The Mandolin Sisters have traveled the world playing their music, including a celebrated European tour after the popularity of their video. Until now, they’ve yet to release a full-length record that properly captures their infinite sonic universe. Discostan is proud to release the first vinyl release by the Mandolin Sisters, remastered and available in a limited run. Over the course of seven songs on the record (with one long bonus track available for digital download), the Sisters showcase their dedication to revitalizing centuries-old songs with a pulsating new energy.
Even before the two sisters could read, the duo have been singularly devoted to the expression of Carnatic music through this unlikely instrument in South Indian classical music for a quarter century. Over their career they have played more than 3,500 shows — performances that have taken them from Chennai — the center of the Carnatic universe — to Europe and South America.
The mandolin is only a recent addition to the world of Carnatic music. However, there is no disputing the role that Uppalapu Srinivas (more widely known as simply U. Srinivas) played in bringing the instrument to wider acclaim and as a respected part of South Indian classical music. A child prodigy like the sisters themselves, Srinivas was soon bringing alive age-old traditions on an unlikely instrument.
Today, the Mandolin Sisters are carrying on the legacy of Srinivas. Sreeusha relates to the way he interpreted the instrument in the tradition: “Playing Carnatic music on mandolin is like finding a way through a jungle or a forest, through which you have to forge your own path. Because of the speed with which the instrument is played, you cannot learn by watching another player. It is like learning a language without a script.”
Through their renditions of eight standards, the Mandolin Sisters imbue their signature sound onto raga compositions drawn from the deep well of the Carnatic tradition. Because of the amount of improvisation in Carnatic music, no song is ever played the same twice. Each performer adjusts the song every time to create an all-new version, even playing them for years. While they are inspired by deep tradition and the mastery of Srinivas and others, their search for new paths is unrelenting. In the words of Sireesha: “In Carnatic music there’s no end to learning, it keeps going. It’s like a sea. No matter how deep you go, there is always more depth.”
Previously released on May 20th 2014. Kikagaku Moyo here sound anything but lost, their child-like wonder manifested in a confident, courageous exploration of sound. Labels – psychedelic, folk, prog-rock, psychedelic-folk-mixed-with-prog-rock – do little to accurately reflect the spectrum of influences on display, let alone the more impactful realization of completeness in Kikagaku Moyo’s songs.
Originally released on CD in 2000 from South Indian Carnatic music label and reissued on vinyl and digital first time in 2019 by Time Capsule. New 2024 repress vinyl has different tracks on the B side and it still remains as the reverse cut as the 2019 version.
⚠️Reverse Cut Vinyl ⚠️
This record plays from the inner groove to the outer groove. You don’t need to change any settings on your turntable; Just place the needle where the record usually finishes and play normally.
A long-playing record like this (over 20 minutes long) tends to have lesser dynamics and sound quality when it’s closer to the center of the record due to the progressive reduction of linear resolution as the record progresses to smaller diameters. Since this music starts quietly at the beginning and then has greater dynamics and volume towards the end, this way of cutting vinyl yields superior results.
2024 new vinyl press tracklist
A1 : Sada Bala (Slokam)
A2 : Bhajeham Bhajeham
B1: Keshvaya Namaha
B2: Raghavam
Volume 2 of this series focused on the amazing sonic treasures Bollywood music has to offer. This second volume is centered on the incredible instrumental gems that populate Hindi cinema soundtracks. 14 tracks of pure Bollywood instrumental genius to continue the dive into the mind-blowing world of Hindi cinema music. Covering a time span of 3 decades, this compilation mixes well-known names (like S.D. and R.d. Burman or O.P. Nayyar), with lesser-known talents from the endlessly thrilling vaults of Hindi movie soundtracks and throws a couple of delicious covers for a truly unforgettable sonic experience. Includes liner notes.
Black Truffle is pleased to announce Melopea, presenting two new pieces highlighting the incredible voice of Amelia Cuni (1958-2024), the great Italian singer, based in Berlin in later life, whose mastery of the classical Indian dhrupad developed in parallel with a commitment to contemporary experimental approaches. After two stunning archival releases documenting traditional dhrupad performances in India in the 1990s (BT079 and BT092), the two side-long pieces here embody the freedom with which Cuni explored new contexts and settings for her singing. Both make use of a long recording of Cuni singing the pentatonic Raag Bhoop (or Bhopali) made in 2012 by her partner Werner Durand in Berlin. ‘Melopea’ began from Cuni and Durand’s superimposition of this recording with violinist Silvia Tarozzi and cellist Deborah Walker’s performance of Éliane Radigue’s ‘Occam River II’.
Inspired by the beauty of this chance encounter (and other experiments with non-synchronous collaboration during the pandemic years), Tarozzi and Walker recorded independently, without hearing Cuni’s voice but ‘having her present in memory’. Tarozzi and Walker’s bowed strings places Cuni’s magisterial performance in a new context, emphasising, as Radigue commented upon hearing the initial layering of her piece with Cuni’s voice, a shared ‘searching toward the partials, overtones, these natural constituents of acoustical sounds in their richness’. Beginning with whispered bowed harmonics, the violin and cello swap the stability of dhrupad’s traditional tanpura drone for a slowly evolving, uneasy web of harmonic interactions recalling some of Harley Gaber’s work, sometimes sitting on dissonances for long periods or allowing changing interference patterns to come to the fore. Primarily focusing on her lower register, Cuni’s performance demonstrates her mastery of microtonal pitch subtleties, elegant sweeping glissandi and meditatively unhurried pacing.
The continuation of the same recording by Cuni forms the foundation of ‘Bhoop-Murchana’, with Anthea Caddy on cello and Werner Durand on soprano saxophone. In contrast to the randomised layering of the first piece, here Durand and Caddy have carefully selected pitches based on the raag Cuni sings, using the ‘Murchana’ form, which uses the constituent notes of the raag as tonics of new raags, retaining the same interval structure. Both players who have developed tones of striking depth and harmonic purity on their instruments, Caddy and Durand’s patient long tones are simultaneously rigorously grounded in the physical properties of sound and possessed of an immaterial, floating quality. Combined with Cuni’s voice and, near the piece’s end, her contributions on hammered and plucked tanpura, the effect borders on miraculous. To surrender to this music is like slipping into an onsen pool, feeling the instantaneous release of every tension. Accompanied by liner notes from Durand, Tarozzi and Walker, Melopea is both a moving tribute to the profound art of Amelia Cuni and, for the uninitiated, a perfect introduction to it.
Released in 1967, “Jazz Raga” is a hypnotic fusion of jazz, rock, psychedelic folk, and Eastern influences. Gábor Szabó, the Hungarian jazz guitarist known for his boundary-pushing style, delivers one of the most captivating records of his career with sitar-laced melodies. From the dreamy groove of ‘Walking On Nails’ to the swirling mysticism of ‘Mizrab,’ and his hauntingly original take on the Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint It Black,’ “Jazz Raga” is a hypnotic fusion where European tradition meets the counterculture spirit of the '60s. ***AUDIO***: youtu.be/aX6CIIJXIeQ?si=1vlVWlVH4QSNpzmQ Publicado originalmente en 1967 en el emblemático sello Impulse, “Jazz Raga” es una mezcla hipnótica de jazz, rock, folk psicodélico y sonidos orientales. Gábor Szabó, el guitarrista de jazz húngaro conocido por su estilo rompedor, entrega en esta obra una de las grabaciones más fascinantes de su carrera con melodías adornadas con sitar. Desde la atmósfera ensoñadora de ‘Walking On Nails’ hasta la mística envolvente de ‘Mizrab’, pasando por su versión profundamente original de ‘Paint It Black’ de los Rolling Stones, “Jazz Raga” es una mezcla hipnótica en la que la tradición europea se cruza con el espíritu contracultural de los años 60.
“Music for Stillness” unfolds slowly, inviting rest and quiet presence. The bansuri flute leads the sound, its vocal-like quality weaving melody atop cello and ambient textures. Influenced by Indian classical music, Japanese environmental music, and Western ambient music, the album leaves space for the listener to choose how deeply to engage. The music offers a single question: What might peace sound like?
Hindi film’s greatest soundtrackers meld cool, swinging jazz and ancient raga tradition in this 1968 wonder, reissued on vinyl for the first time in 2017. ‘Raga Jazz Style’ speaks brilliantly to a transcontinental fusion of styles seeded in the US with John & Alice Coltrane’s visionary efforts, and here adapted back to source in the subcontinent. By this point the Shankar Jaikashan duo had practically achieved their zenith as go-to composers for Hindi film scores, and as competition started coming from likes of R.D. Burman, they would prove their versatility in melding Afro-American jazz with millennia-old raga forms, resulting this vibrant suite that nails both styles, sometimes on their own, and sometimes combined with sitar. It’s rare pleasure to hear them dance between the two, only a few years before Jaikashan passed away, leaving Shanka to continue solo under the Shankar-Jaikashan handle, and a richly inspirational legacy.
Award-winning composer and producer Sarathy Korwar to release new album celebrating the melodic power of the drum ensemble Sarathy Korwar, genre-breaking drummer, producer and composer, announces the release of his seventh album, There Is Beauty, There Already, out on Otherland on 7th November 2025. Celebrating the melodic power of the drum ensemble, the album follows his 2022 Indofuturist manifesto KALAK with a deeply immersive longform suite of percussion-led compositions. Playing as a 40-minute suite of hypnotic and transcendent drum improvisations, the album beats through a repetitive, circular structure that brings to mind Indian folk music, jazz drum ensembles like Max Roach’s M’Boom and the contemporary classical minimalism of Terry Riley and Steve Reich. From the undulating bass tones of the tabla to the tonal varieties of South Indian clay pot ghatam, the snare drum snap of the drum kit, and shades of electronic texture through the Buchla Easel, Korwar’s ensemble bubbles and flows through a stream of steady rhythm, forever in motion like the ceaseless energy of a river.
“The album is me finding my voice as a composer again and going back to the thing I know best, which is the drums,” Korwar says. “It’s me falling back in love with percussion and expressing just how melodic and emotive it can be. Unlike my other albums that have often engaged with weighty themes like migration, identity and futurism, this is a raw act of placing myself front and centre – letting the drums speak instead.”
Written and recorded over four days at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios, Korwar is joined by drummers Photay, Magnus Mehta, and Joost Hendrickx. Setting up an array of drums in the live room – from drum kit to tabla, marimba, balafon, udu and ghatam – Korwar gave himself and his instrumentalists free reign to flow through and play whatever complimented their ever-developing music, while triggered attachments to synthesisers and the Buchla Easel added unexpected elements of electronic texture. "By day three, we realised that we kept coming back to this single, repeated 40-minute pattern, which was locking us in and making us hypnotised by its rhythm," Korwar says. "I decided to do multiple takes of that idea to build a structure – and that’s what you ultimately hear on the record." A riposte to our flitting attention spans, the album is designed to be played from start to finish as a singular, longform suite of music, evoking a constant sense of motion and intent. Drawing on the idea of repetition to the point of going beyond monotony and into the unknown – like a word repeated so many times it loses meaning – the record becomes a remarkable exploration of rhythm as trance and transformation. Exploding onto the international jazz scene with his 2016 Ninja Tune debut Day to Day, Korwar has released four albums exploring everything from the folk music of the Indian Sidi community to hip-hop, electronics, contemporary jazz and Indian classical music. He won the 2020 AIM Award for Best Independent Album and MOJO’s Jazz Album of the Year for 2019’s spoken word-influenced More Arriving, as well as being nominated at the Jazz FM and Worldwide Awards and in 2023 won the Songlines Award for Best Album (Asia/Pacific) with KALAK.
As a musician and producer, meanwhile, he has collaborated with Shabaka Hutchings and producer Hieroglyphic Being on 2017’s A.R.E. Project, as well as releasing a collaborative album with Auntie Flo in 2022, and forming jazz supergroup FLOCK with Bex Burch, Tamar Osborn, Danalogue and Al MacSween. He is also currently a member of sitarist Anoushka Shankar’s band and produced and co-wrote her 2025 album, Chapter III: Return to Light. Almost a decade on from his debut, There Is Beauty, There Already sees Korwar producing some of his most personal and vulnerable work to date. From the album cover – a grid of self-portraits taken at his local Co-Op checkout over the past five years, “a ritual story of my life in images” – to an accompanying, self-written poem reflecting on beauty, the record marks a new direction. It also signals the launch of Korwar’s own label, Otherland. “It’s a home for my own future music and music from others that doesn’t tick many boxes – that doesn’t have a motherland or fatherland of its own," he says. "It’s about embracing this music as it is, finding the beauty in it and recognising it, just as the album title says." The album will launch with an exclusive show at The ICA on 15 November 2025 as part of the London Jazz Festival, where Korwar will expand his ensemble to a dozen drummers, guiding live improvisations through the record’s percussive textures from start to finish. There Is Beauty, There Already is released on Otherland on 7th November 2025, distributed worldwide by !K7.
Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s devotion to spirituality was the central purpose of the final four decades of her life, an often-overlooked awakening that largely took shape during her four-year marriage to John Coltrane and after his 1967 death. By 1983, Alice had established the 48-acre Sai Anantam Ashram outside of Los Angeles. She quietly began recording music from the ashram, releasing it within her spiritual community in the form of private press cassette tapes. On May 5, Luaka Bop will release the first-ever compilation of recordings from this period, making these songs available to the wider public for the first time. Entitled ‘World Spirituality Classics, Volume 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda,’ the release is the first installment in a planned series of spiritual music from around the globe; curated, compiled and distributed by Luaka Bop.
This powerful, largely unheard body of work finds Alice singing for the first time in her recorded catalog, which dates back to 1963 and includes appearances on six John Coltrane albums, alongside Charlie Haden and McCoy Tyner, and 14 albums as bandleader starting with her Impulse! debut in 1967 with ‘A Monastic Trio.’ The songs featured on the Luaka Bop release have been culled from the four cassettes that Alice recorded and released between 1982 and 1995: ‘Turiya Sings,’ ‘Divine Songs,’ ‘Infinite Chants,’ and ‘Glorious Chants.’ The digital, cassette and CD release will feature eight songs. The double-vinyl edition features two additional songs, “Krishna Japaye” from 1990’s ‘Infinite Chants, and the previously unreleased “Rama Katha” from a separate ‘Turiya Sings’ recording session.
Luaka Bop teamed with Alice’s children to find the original master tapes in the Coltrane archive. The recordings were prepared for re-mastering by the legendary engineer Baker Bigsby (Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, John Coltrane), who had overseen the original sessions in the 80s and 90s. The compilation showcases a diverse array of recordings in addition to Alice’s first vocal work: solo performances on her harp, small ensembles, and a 24-piece vocal choir. The release is dotted with eastern percussion, synthesizers, organs and strings, making for a mesmerizing, even otherworldly, listen. Alice was inspired by Vedic devotional songs from India and Nepal, adding her own music sensibility to the mix with original melodies and sophisticated song structures. She never lost her ability to draw from the bebop, blues and old-time spirituals of her Detroit youth, fusing a Western upbringing with Eastern classicism. In all, these recordings amount to a largely untold chapter in the life story of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda.
In addition to the recordings, GRAMMY-winning music historian Ashley Kahn has written extensive liner notes on the collection. The package also includes a series of interviews with those who knew Alice best, conducted by Dublab’s Mark “Frosty” McNeill, and an as-told-to interview between musician Surya Botofasina (who was raised on Alice’s ashram) and journalist Andy Beta. 2017 marks what would have been Alice’s 80th year of life, as well as the 10th anniversary of her passing. Alice will be celebrated at events throughout the United States, Europe and South America in the coming year. With this in mind, the time is right to bring this meaningful piece of Turiyasangitananda’s legacy into focus.
In the North of Nigeria, people like Bollywood films so much that 20 years ago, they started making their own local productions. The films of Kannywood feature song and dance - and the incredible music that defines Northern Nigeria: Autotuned robotic vocals combined with frenetic drum machines and pitch bending synths for a hybrid of local styles and Indian influence. In 2012, Sahel Sounds and Little Axe traveled to Kano, the center of the film and film soundtrack industry and heart of Kannywood. Meeting with some of the top actors, directors, and musicians, and visiting dozens of studios - where songs are composed with desktop computers and digital keyboards - we collected thousands of songs, a drop in the abundance of Hausa film music. "Harafin So" which translates to "Word of Love" is the first ever international release of film songs from Northern Nigeria, available on limited edition Vinyl and CD and digital download. Featuring top hits by some of the biggest Kannywood film superstars (Fati Niger, Abubakar Sani, and the exuberant Sani Danja), the selection highlights some of the most notable songs in this remote and flourishing music scene - a scene that is the signature sound of an increasingly globalized world.
"First vinyl reissue of this Indian classical masterpiece recorded by Shrimati Kalyani Roy in the late 1960s. Undoubtedly one of the most talented sitar players in the history of the instrument. She is considered as one the finest female players in a field that was dominated by her male counterparts. On these recordings, a two-volume set, she is accompanied by Manick Das (tabla) and Namita Chatterjee (tambura). Recorded in Japan on September 20th, 1974. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (V 2011LP) come as two separate LPs."
"First vinyl reissue of this Indian classical masterpiece recorded by Shrimati Kalyani Roy in the late 1960s. Undoubtedly one of the most talented sitar players in the history of the instrument. She is considered as one the finest female players in a field that was dominated by her male counterparts. On these recordings, a two-volume set, she is accompanied by Manick Das (tabla) and Namita Chatterjee (tambura). Recorded in Japan on September 20th, 1974. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (V 2011LP) come as two separate LPs."
Mindblowing!!! Originally released on Impulse! in 1971, Universal Consciousness is a major turning point in Alice Coltrane's momentous career. While her previous albums pushed the limits of spiritual free jazz and featured much of her late husband's band, Universal Consciousness expands the harpist / pianist's compositional palette with organ and strings (working with Ornette Coleman). "Oh Allah" is the finest example of Coltrane's new direction: tense violins dissolve into sublime organ solos and exquisite brushwork from long-time Miles Davis collaborator Jack DeJohnette. While the title track undulates with a fierce clamor, "Hare Krishna" showcases Coltrane's uncanny ability for transcendent and slow-paced arrangements.
In The Wire's "100 Records That Set the World on Fire," David Toop writes, "[Universal Consciousness] clearly connects to other dyspeptic jazz traditions – the organ trio, the soloists with strings – yet volleys them into outer space, ancient Egypt, the Ganges, the great beyond. The production is astounding, the quality of improvisation is riveting, the string arrangements are apocalyptic rather than saccharine, the balance of turbulence and calm a genuine dialectic that later mystic / exotic post-jazz copped out of pursuing. Her lack of constraint was dimly regarded by adherents of '70s jazz and its masculine orthodoxies, yet Alice deserved better credit for virtuosity, originality, and the sheer willpower needed to realize her vision."
Paris, 1978. Don Cherry walks into a French studio with a suitcase full of instruments nobody expected and meets Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan for the first time. No rehearsal, no plan, just two musicians who recognize each other immediately as kindred spirits. What happens next is one of Cherry's best efforts - an album only hardcore fans know about, recorded in Paris, released only in France in 1981, disappeared, and now back again in a special edition that demands attention. This is what "world music" should have been before the term got watered down into airport lounge background noise.
Don Cherry - the man who stood next to Ornette Coleman in Los Angeles and New York, playing trumpet and cornet through the birth of Free Jazz, that final structural revolution of American improvisation based on melody rather than harmony. But Cherry never stopped there. He had a voracious musical appetite and boundless imagination that pulled him toward India, Brazil, Africa, Indonesia, China - not as a tourist collecting sounds, but with deep personal engagement. His commitment ran deeper than novelty. This wasn't about exotic decoration. This was about a global vision of art and the human condition.
Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan - Delhi gharana lineage, new generation tabla master who extended what his predecessors had built, gained recognition as a soloist, ventured onto the international scene. Irregular rhythmic patterns, highly syncopated, rich in variety and originality. The kind of percussionist who could grasp Cherry's intentions immediately, warm up his fingers at astonishing speed, tune Cherry's entire diverse instrument collection - concert piano, Hammond B3 organ, chromatic orchestral timpani - with perfect pitch and no hesitation.
They had never met before the recording session. But they recognized each other immediately. Calm, focused, full of laughter. Cherry knew what he wanted to create. Latif posed no challenge - he was the answer. The result is an incredible mixture of jazz and Indian music that doesn't feel like mixture at all - it feels like the music that was always supposed to exist when these two worlds met at the right moment with the right people. Not fusion for fusion's sake. Not "exotic instruments" as decoration. This is two masters speaking the same language for the first time and realizing they'd been having the same conversation in different rooms for years.
Recorded 1978 in Paris. Released only in France in 1981. Disappeared. Forgotten except by those who knew. First reissued by Honest Jon's years ago. Now back in special edition format because some records refuse to stay buried.
Essential for anyone who thinks Don Cherry's best work ended with Ornette, or that "world music" has to choose between authenticity and imagination. This is both. This is neither. This is what happens when boundaries dissolve because they were never really there.
La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day.
Seeing reissue for the first time since its initial 1969 release, Young and Zazeela's first full-length album is often referred to as "The Black Record" due to Zazeela's stunning cover design, complete with the composer's liner notes in elegant hand-lettered script.
Side one was recorded in 1969 (on the date and time indicated by the title) at the gallery of Heiner Friedrich in Munich, where Young and Zazeela premiered their Dream House sound and light installation. Featuring Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone, the recording is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). According to Young, the raga-like melodic phrases of his voice were heavily influenced by his future teacher, the Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath.
Side two, recorded in Young and Zazeela's NYC studio in 1964, is a section of the longer composition Studies in the Bowed Disc. This composition is an extended, highly abstract noise piece for bowed gong (gifted by sculptor Robert Morris). The liner notes explain that the live performance can be heard at 33 and 1/3 RPM, but may also be played at any slower speed down to 8 and 1/3 RPM for turntables with this capacity.
Track Listing:
31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM
23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta
La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day.
Seeing reissue for the first time since its initial 1969 release, Young and Zazeela's first full-length album is often referred to as "The Black Record" due to Zazeela's stunning cover design, complete with the composer's liner notes in elegant hand-lettered script.
Side one was recorded in 1969 (on the date and time indicated by the title) at the gallery of Heiner Friedrich in Munich, where Young and Zazeela premiered their Dream House sound and light installation. Featuring Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone, the recording is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). According to Young, the raga-like melodic phrases of his voice were heavily influenced by his future teacher, the Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath.
Side two, recorded in Young and Zazeela's NYC studio in 1964, is a section of the longer composition Studies in the Bowed Disc. This composition is an extended, highly abstract noise piece for bowed gong (gifted by sculptor Robert Morris). The liner notes explain that the live performance can be heard at 33 and 1/3 RPM, but may also be played at any slower speed down to 8 and 1/3 RPM for turntables with this capacity.
Track Listing:
31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM
23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta
Morgenmusiken by Green Cosmos – A Cosmic Jazz Journey Unearthed
In the late 1970s, four young musicians from Marsberg, Germany—despite the absence of a local jazz scene—came together to form Green Cosmos, a quartet whose sound drew equally from John Coltrane’s spiritual fire, world music traditions, free jazz, and Indian classical influences.
Morgenmusiken marks a pivotal stage in the group’s evolution, moving beyond the ballad-driven character of their debut Abendmusiken—reissued earlier this year by Frederiksberg Records—toward freer, more meditative soundscapes. Across seven previously unreleased tracks, the album blends “cosmic music” with “live compositions,” reflecting the band’s distinctive approach to spontaneous creation. Sessions often began in silence and meditation, gradually unfolding into collective improvisations.
The lineup featured Michael Boxberger on saxophone, Benny Düring on piano, and twin brothers Alfred and Ulrich Franke forming a rhythm section frequently described as having a “telepathic connection.” Joined by sitar master Narayan Govande, they shaped a sound that balanced freedom with improvisation, space, and silence. “Silence might be the most beautiful part in music,” the band once reflected. “One single note can make more of an impression than 100 notes.”
With this ethos, Morgenmusiken invites listeners on a journey both meditative and expansive - a discovery of music that feels timeless.