Ladies and Gentlemen, They Are Swirling Through Space
or an album steeped in flighty Afrofuturism, spiky syncopation, and angular everything-else, Swirling—the first new full-length from the Sun Ra Arkestra since 1999—is gleefully set in its ways. It magically makes the past present, recalling the late Ra’s time in Fletcher Henderson’s band in the 1940s as well as his teasing avant-garde efforts of the late ’50s and mid-’70s. Equally represented, for the first time on record, are longtime leader and alto saxophonist Marshall Allen’s twitchy neo-traditionalist interpretive skills. Combined with the Arkestra’s legendarily spacey, spiritual, and sensual way with
