Released: 21/04/23
If you do decide to dabble in the delights of Big Black’s negativist classic, post-listen you may well, like me, need an immediate shot of auraI joy, ‘cause, you know, too much nihilism makes Jack a sadboi. As such, I would advise a healthy dose of the ineffably beautiful The Ecstatic Music of ... . Culled from cassettes recorded while the legendary pianist, composer and spiritual leader Alice Coltrane was living on an ashram in the ‘80s and ‘90s (Turiyasangitananda is her adopted Sanskrit name), the collection represents the most intense and unusual work in the artist’s remarkable career.
Led by effervescent synth drones and Sanskrit-language chants, the pieces here feel less like music than collective meditation, charting a path from Coltrane’s youth in gospel choirs through the astral journeys of her jazz days to something startlingly new. Just try, for example, a track such as ‘Rama Rama’ and experience for yourself the sublime feeling of existential weightlessness it elicits. Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.