A newly unearthed recording of Sun Ra from the 1980s is set to finally be released for the first time.
Prophet was recorded in a single day on Aug. 25, 1986, at Mission Control, a state-of-the-art 24-track studio north of Boston.
Listen to The Prophet below:
Among the studio’s arsenal was the Sequential Prophet VS synthesizer, one of the most sophisticated keyboards Sun Ra ever played. Prophet is likely the only album on which Ra performed using the Prophet synthesizer.
The majority of Sun Ra and his Arkestra’s albums were recorded in concert or in makeshift studios, such as their early 1960s setup at the Choreographer’s Workshop in New York. Other than those, 22 albums were recorded at Variety Recording Studio in New York’s Times Square.
The long-lost recordings on Prophet represent a unique piece of Sun Ra’s recording catalogue, as it finds him in a new room with a new musical tool to explore otherworldly sounds.
Here’s the track listing:
- Morning in Woody Creek
- Hell’s Angels
- Some Jaded, Ativistic Freakout
- Irresponsible Gibberish
- We Were Somewhere Around Barstow
- Kingdom of Fear
- What Limes?
- Strange Rumblings in Aztlan
- The High-Water Mark
- Owl Farm
- Gonzo Journalism Article #3
- White Rabbit (feat. Jenn McCarthy)
- Evening in Woody Creek
Sun Ra’s Prophet will be released Dec. 16, 2022, via Modern Harmonic.