Laraaji
AMBIENT pioneer, New Age trailblazer, street musician, serial collaborator, zither-player extraordinaire, sound healer and teacher of “laughter meditation”, Laraaji’s uniquely spiritual music has been soothing, entrancing and transporting his listeners to another place for more than 40 years. Born Edward Larry Gordon some 78 journeys around the sun ago, the story of how Brian Eno discovered Laraaji playing in a New York park has entered rock’n’roll folklore, while the music they made together launched a quiet but profound revolution. His latest album, Circle Of Celebration, in collaboration with composer Christopher Bono’s NOUS ensemble and his partner and fellow sound healer Arji OceAnanda, has just been released.
“With Laraaji, I instantly felt like he was as present as space or wind or water,” Bono says. “You can’t really know Laraaji in a conventional sense – he seems to have always been there, like the elements.” Uncut caught up with Laraaji, between meditation sessions and dressed as ever all in orange, at his home in Harlem, and invited him to talk us through some of the highlights of his extraordinary sonic journey.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
EDWARD LARRY GORDON
CELESTIAL VIBRATION SWAN, 1978
The zither goes hither on an ethereal, exploratory debut, recorded sitting in the lotus position and in a trance
I bought my first zither from a pawn shop just to fool around with it. I was pawning my Yamaha guitar and had this cosmic direction not to swap it for money, but for another instrument. I tuned the zither to one of my favourite piano chords and turned it electric and found rhythms while experimenting with it.
At the same time, I was studying with different spiritual teachers, going to meditation groups. The zither gave me a new instrument to hang out with in meditative mode. I could go into
