Excelsior Mill in Bloomington, MN

Excelsior Mill
unearths a 1984
Sun Ra
performance on a massive Wurlitzer pipe organ at a club in Atlanta. The 42-minute improvisation is brash, blown-out, and truly bizarre, even by
's standards. It resembles the soundtrack to a vintage low-budget horror thriller played on a malfunctioning calliope, constantly punctuated with violent bursts of sound, somehow made even more sinister by the chintzy, mechanical percussion. The title of the first part, "Beyond Hiroshima," recalls
Ra
's infamous "Nuclear War" single, yet in its own way, this sounds even more apocalyptic. It's overwhelming and frightening in the best way possible. "Excelsior," the second part, is somewhat lighter and more chiming, but it becomes filled with hair-raising turns and explosions, at one point landing at a particularly unsettling train-whistle wheeze. Truly chaotic and unhinged,
is a fascinating document of a singular event, sure to take even longtime
fanatics by surprise. ~ Paul Simpson