Review Summary: I want to speak of that beauty to you...
The concept of consonance and dissonance has been an evolving dialogue of the human being. Individually, as a society, consciously and subconsciously, we often attempt to contain, utilize, and somewhat manipulate tension and release as to create balance. We have often found that dissonance, although jarring and distasteful in nature, provides for incredibly colorful textures, which why it is often most noticed. Consonance, though, serves mostly as a regulator, a stabilizer that helps for elements to feel appropriately conjoined.
On
Sleeping Beauty, Sun Ra and his Arkestra challenge that idea in fascinating fashion.
Throughout the album’s three monolithic songs, profoundly rich soundscapes of jazz barrage the listener with nothing less than brilliance. Sun Ra and over twenty other musicians showcase their skill with passionate solos and striking melodies. Nevertheless, this is not what makes the album stand out so profusely. Rather, it is the way all artists play off each other as to create overbearingly complex harmonic ideas. While all songs feel calm, the deeper the listener focuses on the music, the more clashing it becomes, making for deep coatings of delicate dissonance. However, this dissonance makes the relaxed songs acquire an indescribable feel of humbling nature. It almost makes the music otherworldly, as if it described time and space from an ominous perspective. The thick layers of sound are carefully and masterfully put together to dispute music in an innovative, daring, and revolutionary way. The concept of dissonance and consonance is blurred, and it makes for an auditory experience that is as alluring as it is gritty, as homely as it is confusing, and as romantic as it is violent. It is, quite literally, a paradox of sound.
Sleeping Beauty is a reflection of all that surrounds us. It is the ultimate combination of elements that awes the human being, the ultimate expression of life and death. It is reminiscent of space’s repeated process of creation and destruction, instilled in curious minds. It is an album perfect yet imperfect at the same time, and it is all the more beautiful because of it.
