Following a successful tribute to late composer Moondog last year, Kronos Quartet is teaming up with Red Hot Records and a wide variety of collaborators for a new tribute album dedicated to the life and work of Afrofuturist jazz icon Sun Ra.
The album, Outer Spaceways Incorporated, takes its name from the title of an old Sun Ra tune, and includes features from everyone from footwork DJs RP Boo and Jlin to art-music experimentalists like Terry Riley and Laurie Anderson. They’ve released two singles from the album already, one being an ambient take on “Daddy’s Gonna Tell You No Lie” with Laraaji, the other being an absolutely bonkers rendition of “Outer Spaceways Incorporated.” Trying to out-weird Sun Ra is pretty impressive, but if there’s any group that could do Ra’s music justice, it’d be Kronos Quartet, whose taste for dissonance and genre-mashing is the perfect match for Ra’s catalog.
The album comes out on June 21st; you can hear “Daddy’s Gonna Tell You No Lie” and “Outer Spaceways Incorporated” below and find out more about the album here. If you just can’t wait to get your Sun Ra fix, the Sun Ra Arkestra is coming to Union Transfer on May 24th, celebrating the 100th birthday of saxophonist Marshall Allen. A legend in his own right, the Philly jazz maestro has been performing with the Arkestra for over sixty years. You can find tickets for the show here.