Sun Ra - Space Is The Place (1974)

1. Space Is The Place
2. Images
3. Discipline
4. Sea Of Sounds
5. Rocket Number Nine




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Space Is The Place opens with its title track, a twenty-minute freeform freak-jazz-psychedelic-soul-funk meltdown, a thundering acid-bop meltdown full of squirming melodies, dramatically repurposed instruments, head-splittingly chaotic vocals, solos that seem to spin off in multiple directions at once, and layers of percussion that'll make you dance and have a seizure at the same time. It sounds primitive and futuristic and progressive and playful and high-minded and juvenile and logical and psychotic all at once, and it's a masterpiece. And that's just the first song on the album.

Flip the record over, and you've got four more gems. "Images" is the sound of post-bop teetering on the edge of free jazz. Led by Sun Ra's oceanic piano, the song swerves from a gorgeous theme into regions of near atonality before spiraling back into beauty again, with the kind of high-minded grace reserved for geniuses. "Discipline" is a rolling, apocalyptic drone, and "Sea Of Sounds" is sheer scorched earth freeform noise. "Rocket Number Nine" is willfully cheesy, utterly irresistible space-age jazz pop.

Classic freak jazz. Get it.