Sun Ra - The Nubians of Plutonia (1959)

My favorite music captures my fantasies and taps into mind worlds created by my subconscious, filling in the details on experiences never fully lived. Sun Ra, being one of my favorite locksmiths, has kindly opened many of these perceptual doors for me.

The Nubians of Plutonia, like many of Ra's works, is extremely percussive for jazz, bringing unsubtle, yet deceptively nimble rhythms to the forefront. Notice the bells and hard-hitting toms in Watusa - also notice the similarity to Brubeck's Take Five except in 6/8 rather than the notorious, infamous 5/8.

Africa is a great example of a real transporter of a track. I don't know if it's possible to listen to this song without dissociating from reality and having Ra's thoughts plastered all over your retinas. Once again, percussive hard-hitting toms provide the framework for textural, rather than melodic, improvisation.

The discord of Aiethopia and Africa, in contrast with the upbeat progressive big band sound of Plutonian Nights, shows Ra's all encompassing genius, as all of these songs unquestionably bear his mark. I am disappointed in everyone I know for not being as interesting as Sun Ra.

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Note: This is ripped from the CD reissue, which pairs The Nubians of Plutonia and Angels & Demons at Play. The track numbers don't start at one since I only posted the Nubians tracks.

Ash Ra Tempel - Inventions for Electric Guitar (1974)

Hey, Manuel Göttsching has good taste in scarves bad taste in facial expressions. He also put together some hypnotic minimalism for us. This is where the Krebs cycle, traffic patterns in London, orbiting galaxies, and the schooling behavior of fish all become one. Speed up or slow down any of these behaviors appropriately, assign a musical note to a specific pattern, and this is the music that you will get.

Echo Waves at 12:30 melts into a nightmare of free radicals, attacking every chemical bond within reach. But, if you're not paying super close attention, you don't even notice until the cancer has spread to your bones. It's the development of a ring species condensed into a few moments of music.

Bathe in stars as your mitochondria hum these tunes.

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Giorgio Moroder - From Here to Eternity (1977)

Some people might make up ideas about the relative value of art music and dance music, but Giorgio Moroder is here to show you that, in the future, all such distinctions melt away under the austere pump of his drum machine. Chunks of this album are mixed together as a long track, enabling you to pretend that you are at a cool sunglasses party with ladies, and that the thump of the bassdrum is blood flowing to your big boner.

The opening/title track is structured like a conventional pop song, but then the coolest thing is that the next two tracks are free-form disco bombardments of variations on a main theme from the first song. After a quick little upbeat boner-tickler which functions basically in the same way as a conventional bridge, the first song is brought back for a final jam out. Also, I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone is not only a showcase for clever wordplay and vocoder overuse, it is another great pop song based on a variation of that same theme that keeps popping up. This record is an example of having a vision, and fucking executing it. In the future.

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EDIT: As Aesop, the highly knowledgable and well-respected driver of the Cosmic Hearse points out, Giorgio also did music for the movie Scarface.

Sun Ra - The Night of the Purple Moon (1970)

Who is the coolest guy? Sun Ra.

Sun Ra's recordings exist in an entirely different context than most music. For example, if I were to put you in a sensory deprivation tank and play random songs for you, you might be able to guess pretty accurately that some stupid art school band went to art school, or whether or not a hip-hop artist is deemed acceptable/unacceptable by people with a college education. However, a Sun Ra record would be a more difficult ostrich to wrangle, especially The Night of the Purple Moon.

This thing doesn't even fit in with Sun Ra's other work. This is not the overblown interstellar blast-off of Space is the Place or the exuberant, progressive big band sound of The Nubians of Plutonia. This is Ra jamming out on a Moog, evoking scenes of moon monsters vigorously performing important space rituals (Dance of the Living Image) and then, when their work is done, heading down to the Sea of Tranquility to chat and relax (Love in Outer Space). This is mood music in a way that no one ever means when they say "mood music."

These sounds capture my imagination in a way that few other recordings can, so sit back with a nice tall glass of asteroids and begin your moonship journey.

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EDIT: Anonymous comments have been enabled. Some of you have told me that you're still rocking the tin foil hats and don't have a google account, so come on guys, sell me some penis pills.