SUN RA - EXCELSIOR MILL

• sun ra: excelsior mill
      (2024, cd, usa, modern harmonic)

I'm catching up with the recent Sun Ra releases, so I was quite happy that the "Excelsior Mill" CD arrived last week.

Sun Ra on the Wurlitzer pipe organ.

Mystic and magisterial, Ra comes off here like a cross between a demonically riffing ‘50s horror movie villain and a futuristic congregation leader delivering the interplanetary gospel. Brassy stabs provide the kind of punctuation that could be graphically rendered as an endless string of exclamation marks in 500-point font. String-like swoops and swirls dance across the top of the carnage, cooling the flames just enough to keep the whole thing from combusting (for a while at least) but never dousing the fiery fury that Ra draws forth from the instrument.

Recorded on December 31, 1984, when Sun Ra and his Arkestra appeared at the Excelsior Mill in Atlanta, GA.
Out on LP, CD and through Bandcamp.
The CD presents the entire recording as one track.
Nice package by Modern Harmonic.