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MODERN HARMONIC

Sun Ra

Pink Elephants On Parade

    When you wish upon a star - that turns out to be Saturn

    Previously unheard Ra culled from the archives and compiled based on their association to that children's film corporation with the cartoon rodent - Features almost a half hour of non-LP bonus material!

    Jazz aficionados and Disney nerds alike will marvel at how seamlessly Sun Ra and his Arkestra put their own unique twist on both well-known and overlooked Disney songs. Pink Elephants on Parade takes nine songs from Disney's storied catalog and recontextualizes them as beautiful, fun, and sometimes terrifying pieces of Afrofuturist jazz. The collection also shows further proof of how Ra was always willing to transcend conventions of jazz. Listen to the full album and you will likely never look at the Disney music catalog the same way ever again.

    Originally known for accompanying Dumbo and Timothy's colorful alcohol- induced hallucinations, this song is given a whole new life by Ra and the Arkestra in more ways than one. It also feels faithful to the original at the same time, with the cacophony of horns, drums, percussion, and cowbell resembling that of a marching band. However, the demented grandeur of the song is turned up to eleven with zany vocal lines (hence the high- pitched "What'll I do" inflections) and other performances that somehow sound more evil and gruff here than they did on Oliver Wallace and Ned Washington's version. Though the Sportsmen's vocals from that particular arrangement had a certain creepiness to it, the Arkestra takes a previously innocent sounding song and makes Pink Elephants On Parade sound even more terrifying.

    TRACK LISTING

    CD Tracks:
    The Forest Of No Return (9:30 Club)
    Someday My Prince Will Come (9:30 Club)
    Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah (Virginia 1988)
    Let's Go Fly A Kite (Zurich 1987)
    Second Star To The Right (Virginia 1988)
    Pink Elephants On Parade (Regatta Bar 1990)
    Whistle While You Work (9:30 Club)
    Wishing Well (9:30 Club)
    Never Never Land (Staches 1985)
    Second Star To The Right (Alternate, Virginia 1988)

    LP Tracks:
    The Forest Of No Return (9:30 Club)
    Someday My Prince Will Come (9:30 Club)
    Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah (Virginia 1988)
    Let's Go Fly A Kite (Zurich 1987)
    Second Star To The Right (Virginia 1988)
    Pink Elephants On Parade (Regatta Bar 1990)
    Whistle While You Work (9:30 Club)

    Sun Ra

    Excelsior Mill - 2024 Reissue

      It might thrill you; it might unnerve you; it might strum your heartstrings; it might spook the living daylights out of you. Most likely you'll experience all of the above before the jolting musical jeremiad is done.

      Pressed on violet vinyl! When you're Sun Ra, you don't need synthesizers to evoke apocalyptic visions and interstellar excursions. You don't even need a band. Ra is most widely known for working with various iterations of his Arkestra, but he was no stranger to unaccompanied keyboard expeditions. His discography contains solo piano albums, solo Fender Rhodes records, and solo recordings on conventional organ, the latter going as far back as his home recordings from the 1940s.

      But none of those instruments ever offered Sun Ra the kind of sonic artillery that waited beneath his fingers and feet when he sat before the keyboards, pedals, and multicolored constellation of tabs controlling the Wurlitzer pipe organ. Mystic and magisterial, Ra comes off here like a cross between a demonically riffing '50s horror movie villain and a futuristic congregation leader delivering the interplanetary gospel. Brassy stabs provide the kind of punctuation that could be graphically rendered as an endless string of exclamation marks in 500-point font. String- like swoops and swirls dance across the top of the carnage, cooling the flames just enough to keep the whole thing from combusting (for a while at least) but never dousing the fiery fury that Ra draws forth from the instrument.

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Beyond Hiroshima
      2. Excelsior

      Various Artists

      Something Weird: Spook Show

        Something Weird has exhumed a crypt full of classic Spook Show promos and radio spots monstrously mashed together with fiendish rare surf and garage rock instrumentals. Includes a delightfully deranged DVD featuring Monsters Crash the Pajama Party and more bone-chilling freakouts of fright! LP includes a zine style liner note insert!

        From the 1930s until the 1970s a popular form of entertainment, quaintly called, The Ghost (or Spook) Show, enthralled America. Traveling magicians and illusionists went on the road and added horror elements to their regular (often predictable) stage acts. This appealed to youngsters eager for cheap thrills and chills. The advertising campaigns promised to “scare the yell” out of those “brave” enough to attend, and performances took place mostly at midnight in movie theatres that were decorated with outrageous lobby displays publicizing the shocking and scary things about to be seen - ghosts, ghouls, monsters, gorillas, mad doctors, and some things “so terrifying” that they couldn’t even be mentioned. During the course of the night, classic horror movies were shown, and there were contests with corny gimmicks and silly prizes.

        How does Something Weird fit in? Well, during 2001 SWV compiled what was to become one of their most popular and beloved DVDs, Monsters Crash the Pajama Party Spook Show Spectacular. It featured over three hours of rare Ghost Show shorts and trailers, radio spot audio, galleries of memorabilia, and commentaries with legendary living Ghostmasters. The folks at SWV were huge Spook Show fans and collected anything related to the subject including original 35mm film trailers as well as radio spots on promotional 45s and magnetic tape. So this was a dream project for them, and something near and dear to their bloody hearts.

        Since its release, audio bits from the MCTPPSSS have popped up on radio stations and music compilations. People love them. So it just seemed logical that Something Weird do a Spook Show album. And like our old pal, Jim “The Mad Doctor” Ridenour, we’ve always believed that horror and rock ‘n roll go hand in hand, so what better way than to combine some rarely heard, fiendish surf and garage rock instrumentals with the trailer & radio spot audio and incidental music from the DVD? Now all groovy ghouls and goblins can time travel and have a Spook Show A Go-Go Party! (Just add your own ghosts and gorilla suits...)

        TRACK LISTING

        Something Weird Sound Effect • On With The Show • Young American Mystic Cult Of Horrors • Cemetary Stomp - The Essex • Dr. Evil And His Terrors Of The Unknown • The Morgus Creep – Daringers • Friday The 13th Jinx Show • The Mad Daddy Shock Theatre & The Great London Ghost Show - Incidental Music • Halloween Convention Of Spooks • Count Dracula - The Rockin’ Continentals • Asylum Of The Insane - Radio Spot • Dr. Satan And His Shrieks In The Night • Hey Weirdos • Haunted House - Oscar & The Majestics •A Real Dead Body Giveaway • Monsters Crash The Pajama Party – Opening • Monsters Crash The Pajama Party - Radio Spot • The Giggler - Pat And The Wildcats • The Crawling Thing Plus The Creature Of Evil - Radio Spot • Friday The 13th Midnight Show - Incidental Music • Kara-Kum Of Hollywood - Mortuary Of 18 Living Nightmares • Trial Of The Dead - Radio Spot • The Guillotine - The Executioners • The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary - Radio Spot • Monsters A Go-Go - Radio Spot • Night Beat - The Night Beats • Dr. Silkini’s Giant Triple Scream Show - Garganta Alive In Person! • Fantastic Horror Frolic - Incidental Music • Dr. Macabre’s Frightmare Of Movie Monsters • Marathon Of Fright • Transylvania - The Mysterions • A Man Buried Alive

        Sun Ra And His Arkestra

        El Is A Sound Of Joy / Black Sky And Blue Moon

          Shining sounds from the dawn of the Sun Ra Arkestra. "El is A Sound of Joy" was recorded in 1956 and appeared the following year on the very first Saturn LP, Super-Sonic Jazz. Incredible is the fact that saxophonist Charles Davis, here providing the soulful baritone anchor line (counterpoint to Ra's formidable left hand), remains in the front-line of today's Sun Ra Arkestra directed by Marshall Allen. Shuffle swing breakdown jets leisurely, casually, masterfully, painting lush, post-modern impressions of ancient future worlds, of space, of time … of Chicago's elevated trains … Reaching for the sky, for Joy …. The “Joy” coda dovetails magically into the intro theme of "Black Sky And Blue Moon," before downshifting into another dimension of romantic outrospection. We follow The Nu Sounds, aka Cosmic Rays, on a faraway journey to the land of late-50s Chicago singing groups, the Arkestra supporting with quiet grace, pulsing in Nubians of Plutonia mode. An uncanny blend of antique blackness and bright satellites, ethereal voices perfectly in tune; thanks to Ra's disciplined coaching (plus Modern Harmonic's expert re-mastering), their sweet dynamics and exact harmonics are crystal clear. Flute solo from Marshall Allen. Hearts swelling like the full moon, ripening in the darkness to the point of bursting.


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