Bleep

Lifted from 1978’s New Steps, a curiously mellow and low-key LP given Sun Ra’s propensity for audacious experiments in free jazz, Saturn’s favourite son dips into more cosmic existentialism with ‘The Sky Is A Sea Of Darkness…’. Joined by John Gilmore, Luqman Ali and Michael Ray — longstanding members of his quartet — the song moves like fine vapour along melancholy keys, as lyrical impressions are lovingly cast across its steady pace. On the flip side we go further back in time to 1957’s ‘Somewhere In Space’, a full band affair full of swaggering brass and a trilled ‘Alien vocal’ delivery.