Description
*This is a Vinyl LP*
Release Date: 2021
Label: Modern Harmonic
Track List
Side A
- Pathways To Unknown Worlds
Side B
- Extension Out (complete take)
- Cosmo-Media
Notes
- A STUNNING RECREATION OF THE ORIGINAL GATEFOLD JACKET!
- LP INCLUDES ARCHIVAL DOCUMENT REPLICA OF HOW RA WANTED TO SPEND HIS MAJOR LABEL ADVANCE!
- CUT BY KEVIN GRAY, AND PRESSED ON BLACK VINYL AT THIRD MAN FOR OUT OF THIS WORLD SOUND QUALITY!
Intrinsic energies of mythic worlds!
Pathways was originally issued on LP in 1975 as part of Ra’s ill-fated and
short-lived ABC/Impulse! partnership. This Modern Harmonic edition has
been exquisitely mastered from the four-track session reel. The Impulse! LP
was formatted as “Quad Compatible”—short for “quadraphonic”—which you could
enjoy if you had four speakers, a custom quad cartridge/stylus, and a quad
decoder integrated into your ’70s hi-fi. (None of this technology ever
achieved wide consumer acceptance. “Back to Stereo,” if you call that progress.)
Ra’s original LP liner notes expressed his disdain for the past and his vision towards the future. But the future here rendered by Ra seems more dystopian than utopian. Imagine this album as an aural Science Fiction novel, analogous to the contemporaneous writings of Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Samuel R. Delany, and others who dwelled in unknown worlds where confusion and chaos often reign. A cybernetical soundscape for time travel through an inscrutable cosmos.
These 1975 guided improvisations are imbued with an underlying violence, alternate twists, bank turns, headchoppers, loops, rolls, sidewinders and drops. It’s a dark & glorious journey, and features the debut of the complete version of “Extension Out”!
Personnel
Alto Saxophone – Danny Davis
Alto Saxophone, Flute, Oboe – Marshall Allen
Baritone Saxophone – Danny Thompson
Bass – Ronnie Boykins
Bass Clarinet – Leroy Taylor
Congas – Eugene Brennan, Russell Branch, Stanley Morgan
Design [Album] – Earl Klasky, Martin Donald
Drums – Clifford Jarvis
Illustration – Bohdi Wind
Keyboards [Electronic Keyboards], Composed By – Sun Ra
Liner Notes – Brother Cleve
Percussion – James Jacson
Photography By – Jim McCrary
Producer – Alton Abraham
Restoration – Jon Hunt
Tenor Saxophone, Percussion – John Gilmore
Trumpet – Akh Tal Ebah, Lamont McClamb
