Flotation Device 2022-05-22 - Happy birthday Sun Ra

Enjoy our Sun Ra birthday celebration, showcasing several novelties in his vast discography, plus one classic: a seemingly innocuous track from 1960 that shows just how far ahead of the curve he and his Arkestra really were. We observe his fingerprints on key albums by Anthony Braxton and Weather Report whose 50th anniversaries coincide with his birthday and which exemplify two divergent streams of the post-WW2 avant-garde (which was still expanding). We also locate Sun Ra's influence in newly-released recordings by Yuko Fujiyama, the trio of Tony Malaby, Angelica Sanchez and Tom Rainey, and the Zurich-based group Les Mercenaires de l'Amour Fou.

In hour two we focus on composed and fixed-media music, with a pair of tracks from Unexplained Sounds’ new compilation of postindustrial Italian music, plus a remarkable example of old-meets-new from James Weeks and EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, and a just-recorded orchestral work by Žibuoklė Martinaitytė where time both passes and stands still.