One of this week's most significant releases, this compilation of early recordings from Laraaji is essential. Segue to Infinity, out now via Numero Group, compiles recordings from the multi-instrumentalist prior to his recordings with Brian Eno. This music is already fully-realized, and it occupies its own unique space.
This extraordinary set begins with Celestial Vibration, the first album from the man who would become Laraaji. The only record released under his real name (Edward Larry Gordon), Celestial Vibration offers two sides of Laraaji's music. "Bethlehem" is expansive and liquid in its path. The sound opens up and leaves plenty of empty space. The instruments are not easy to identify in spots, though there's zither, yes. This is really early ambient music, and one can hear why Brian Eno was drawn to Laraaji's material. "All Pervading" finds Laraaji using a nearly skipping, cyclical figure. The riff generates momentum and the cut is hypnotic.
Segue to Infinity offers up another nearly two hours of material. "Kalimba" features the instrument of the title with a light-as-air figure serving as the basis of the piece, while "Segue to Infinity" finds Laraaji using a flute to pop in and out of the main space of the track. At times insistent, and at others barely there, the flute is not necessarily a virtuousic instrument here, being used instead to conjure a mood. Elsewhere, two longer kalimba-based pieces work up a neat energy, skipping and ringing patterns of melody darting in and around the center-line of the composition.
With liner notes by Vernon Reid, Segue to Infinity is a vital document of American ambient music. It's also a vital document of African-American art, and a sampling of a prodigious talent at the start of his career. The tracks can be listened to separately, though I listened to this set all in one sitting and let myself get transported. There really is nothing else that sounds like the music of Laraaji, and even on his earliest efforts, he was practically creating a genre all on his own.
Segue to Infinity is out now via Numero Group.
[Photo: Numero Group]