Jan Garbarek / The Hilliard Ensemble: Officium Novum

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  Strut Records proudly presents the official reissue of Hidden Fire Volumes 1 & 2, the final album released by Sun Ra on his El Saturn label in 1988. Captured live over three nights at the Knitting Factory in New York City, these performances mark the closing chapter of a 33-year odyssey of radical, independent music-making. Originally issued in tiny quantities with minimal packaging and cryptic artwork—often featuring hand-written labels or Ra’s own handmade designs—Hidden Fire was among the most elusive entries in Sun Ra’s vast discography. Musically, these recordings stand apart from Ra’s other '80s compositions. Here, Hidden Fire plunges into darker, more dissonant territory. Ra performs exclusively onn the Yamaha DX7 synthesiser, pushing its digital sound palette into alien dimensions. The Arkestra lineup is uniquely configured, featuring a rare and heavy string section with three violins, including the legendary Billy Bang, and the singular space vocalist Art Jenkins, whose eerie textures and vocalisations had not been heard so prominently since the early 1960s Choreographers Workshop sessions. The music is raw, unsettled, and often overwhelming. “Retrospect / This World Is Not My Home” opens with a palindromic riff that evokes Ellington before unraveling into a stark sermon from Ra, warning of death’s dominion over Earth-bound minds. “Hidden Fire Improvisation” is a furious explosion of tone science, with Marshall Allen, Billy Bang, and John Gilmore delivering fire-breathing solos over relentless drumming and Ra’s cascading synth clusters. “Hidden Fire Blues” offers a warped, electrified version of Ra’s familiar blues feature, led by Bruce Edwards on guitar and Rollo Radford on electric bass, transformed through the haze of DX7 textures. “My Brothers The Wind And Sun #9” evokes the experimental weight of The Heliocentric Worlds with its crashing percussion, pulsing synth-vocal duets, and string- driven chaos that seems to spiral into oblivion. Even the quieter moments—such as “Hidden Fire II,” a duet between Ra and ArtJenkins—feel thick with unease and shadowy beauty. These performances represent a Sun Ra less concerned with cosmic joy or outer-space swing, and more focused on conjuring portals to the unknown. Remastered from original sources and presented with archival photos, new liner notes by Paul Griffiths, and restored artwork inspired by the original Saturn editions, this reissue offers a definitive window into the last creative surge of one of music’s most visionary figures across two Vinyl LP’s.

  Out 19.9.2025 on Strut Records.

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  Pre-order: Aleksandra Ionowa – Improvisations on the Grand Piano

  Aleksandra Ionowa (1899–1980) was a Finnish-Russian artist, mystic, and largely self-taught pianist whose music feels like a transmission from another realm. Her artistic life began in 1946, after what she described as a mystical experience of heavenly union—“Heaven was in me, I was in heaven.” In its wake, she began to draw obsessively, eventually creating thousands of visionary works that she considered guided by the Theosophical Masters. The same experience also led her to start improvising on the piano, shaping music that, for its time, was unusually free and abstract. Recorded on a November day in 1978, when Aleksandra Ionowa was 79 years old, Improvisations on the Grand Piano is a meditative and deeply intuitive album, shaped more by timbre and tone than by melody. Her shimmering playing unfolds like flashes of light through leaves, or sunbeams playing on rippling water: a music of transience and transformation, yet carrying a timeless stillness at its core. To today’s listener, her pentatonic piano stylings might feel kindred to the spiritual intimacy of artists like Laraaji and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, while remaining wholly her own. Originally self-released on vinyl and cassette, the album is reissued for the first time in co-operation with Ultraääni Records and Puro Recordings. This new edition is available on standard black 180g vinyl and a limited splatter-colored 180g version. The release also includes additional artwork and a newly commissioned essay by Samuli Huttunen, offering historical and spiritual context for her work.

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  We Jazz Magazine, Issue 16: Thembi (Fall 2025)

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  Ambient – The “Brian” Cap (2025 Edition)

  Back by popular demand!!! This is the third entry in our "composer" series of caps produced together with graphic designer and drummer Tomi Leppänen. ONE SIZE FITS ALL, ADJUSTABLE. Black cap with white AMBIENT embroidery or white cap with black AMBIENT embroidery or Pastel Mint cap with white AMBIENT embroidery. In celebration of Brian Eno

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