LARAAJI - GLIMPSES OF INFINITY

Released: 12/07/2024

Not so long ago, Pitchfork argued that “the narrative of Laraaji as a street busker who was simply ‘discovered’ by [Brian] Eno” should be laid to rest, and that attention instead should be paid to his being a “preeminent figure in ambient and new-age music’s history”. Such a statement betrays a typically snobbish, entitled attitude towards street performers: that if a musician isn’t performing in some bourgeois venue full of ding-dongs willing to pay over-the-odds for warm beer, then somehow their art is less-than. A better narrative is that Laraaji – AKA the Philadelphia native Edward Larry Gordon – was always going to get his creations to a wider audience one way or another, given his astonishing ability, and that Eno simply had the wherewithal to listen without the prejudice to Gordon’s sublime electric zither improvisations in Washington Square Park in 1979, which led to the him releasing Laraaji’s classic Ambient 3: Day of Radiance (the third release in Eno's Ambient series).

Now 81, Gordon has had a long and illustrious career, but compilations such as the wonderful Glimpses of Infinity, which gathers selections from his 1978 debut Celestial Vibration and six additional studio sessions from the era, are crucial not only for their artistic value, but as a way of preventing the depressing trend for the names of black pioneers in the field of leftfield music from being eclipsed. Containing works of sublime, transcendental beauty, Glimpses of Infinity is a timely reminder of Gordon’s stature as a true visionary.