So it seems that Sun Ra was seriously concerned about the vastness of space and its divine nature. One might say was divorced from immediate reality and exquisitely attuned to a broader, more spiritually significant reality. If one is looking for an album of "other-worldly music" that makes a strong, cohesive statement, then you can't do much better than this. It begins with the two strongest tracks, "Heliocentric" and "Outer Nothingness", featuring mysterious textures of bass marimba and timpani, soliloquies, sudden hiatuses, and monumental trombone intrusions that evoke Varese. What these tracks don't have is much that sounds like jazz, although draped in the background from time to time you might hear a walking bass line or a light hi-hat swing, as if the players can't help themselves. In "Outer Worlds," a clumpy piano intro becomes a free-Dixieland morass, like colliding asteroids, with a spacy, gravity-defying episode of electric celesta. The B-side isn't as focused but still carries on exploring unknown destinations until the brief, sloppy free swing of the album closer, "Dancing in the Sun."
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