Various Artists

Music is a Message From Space

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Music is a Message From Space is a bracing ten-track LP featuring new and archival recordings all orbiting around the intergalactic soundscape introduced by Sun Ra. Ra's own a capella track "I Don't Believe in Love," recorded by Ra at home in Chicago during the 1950s, kicks the program off.  This intimate private recording is followed by two intense new solo improvisations by French guitarist Raymond "Moncho" Boni, one acoustic and one electric, inspired by seeing the Arkestra preparing for a gig in Arles in 1976. The first side wraps up with Jason Adasiewicz's riveting unaccompanied vibraphone workout on Ra's "Lanquidity" and "Where Pathways Meet," both compositions from the LP Lanquidity. With a completely different take on Lanquidity, Side Two begins with four wild remixes by legendary Cologne techno pioneer Wolfgang Voigt, using layered samples from the record. Hailing from the intersection of free jazz and out rock, Ken Vandermark's band Spaceways Inc., with bassist Nate McBride and drummer Hamid Drake, continue with a medley of two Ra tunes ("We Travel the Spaceways" and "Space is the Place"), in collaboration with the Italian band Zu. And where the program started in disbelief, love-skepticism, it concludes with Joe McPhee's emphatic loving embrace on "Cosmic Love," a classic tenor/synth sound-on-sound recording from 1970. 

In its breadth, Music is a Message From Space revels in the omnidirectionality of Ra's influence. The vinyl is strictly limited to 500 copies and features cover art by Emil Schult, who designed classic 1970s LPs for Kraftwerk. The record's inner sleeve reproduces the artworks in Nothing Is: Sun Ra and Other's Covers, a show curated by John Corbett and Albert Oehlen for JUBG in Cologne and CvsD in Chicago, serving as a full-color commemoration of that recent exhibition.

A1. SUN RA I Don’t Believe in Love (Unknown/1:56)

A2. RAYMOND BONI not so necessarily (Boni/5:44)

A3. RAYMOND BONI sun ra river side (Boni/8:20)

A4. JASON ADASIEWICZ Lanquidity/Where Pathways Meet (Sun Ra/6:07)

B1. WOLFGANG VOIGT Sun Ra Loop 1 (2:35)

B2. WOLFGANG VOIGT Sun Ra Loop 2 (2:45)

B3. WOLFGANG VOIGT Sun Ra Loop 3 (2:01)

B4. WOLFGANG VOIGT Sun Ra Loop 4 (2:20)

All samples from the 1978 Sun Ra LP Lanquidity, by permission of Sun Ra LLC.

B5.* SPACEWAYS INC. + ZU We Travel the Spaceways/Space Is the Place (Sun Ra/8:07)*Vinyl only.

First released on Radiale (Atavistic, 2004).

B6. JOE MCPHEE Cosmic Love (McPhee/5:58)

First released on Sound On Sound (Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2010).

Cover image by Emil Schult.

LP designed by Michael Dyer/Remake.

This record accompanies the exhibition Nothing Is: Sun Ra and Others’ Covers, at JUBG in Cologne (2024) and Corbett vs. Dempsey in Chicago (2025). Special thanks to all the artists in the show.

Produced by John Corbett and Albert Oehlen.

CvsDLP013