Strut and Art Yard have been doing the lord's work with these Sun Ra reissues. This one comes from a radio studio session in '74 or '75. The Arkestra is a 9-man unit this time featuring twin towers Marshall Allen and John Gilmore along with Eddie Thomas on drums, Atakatune on oboe and congas, and Akh Tal Ebah and James Jacson contributing vocals. Notably no bass player. Four tracks here - "Island in the Sun", "New Dawn", a great version of "Unmask the Batman" and the best of the bunch, "I'll Wait For You". Certainly not the most cosmic as the Arkestra has ever gotten and not an earmark but a good listen and another piece in the neverending Sun Ra puzzle.
I was not aware of these guys, who formed in 2010 as a noise duo, and slowly evolved and added more members and turned into a kind of death/blackened doom metal project. They've got ties to other noise acts I don't know (Sutekh Hexen) and other industrial acts I don't know (Only Now). Quite a stew and the band pulls of something that sounds truly different. It's got a tentacle in each of the aforementioned genres but blends them really well. It's quite hard to pin them down in fact. Big, heavy riffs with a production level along the lines of a sludge/black metal record but sharp instrumentation and just a dirty atmosphere...ambient noise passages separate a couple tracks as a nice diversion...very cool

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