A Fireside Chat With Lucifer

While the most renown track in this omniversal opus is the atomic expletive-filled repartee “Nuclear War,” there is so much more to this dark mysterious journey through the mind of Sun Ra. The sprawling, suite-like 20-minute title track sustains a lyrical edge in spite of an open framework and textures, which encourage sonorities to surface and emerge from the band as if there was no human intention behind them. In opposition to “Nuclear War,” Ra’s organ playing here was built less on bombast and sonic terror than it is on whispers, stutters, shivers, and swells. Fireside Chat offers a wide stylistic array, as was the artistʼs intent, reflecting his eclectic, seemingly irreconcilable approach to compositional extremes. With Sun Ra you get everything… except predict- ability.

Thomas Stanley, in his ambiguously titled 2014 book, The Execution of Sun Ra, observes, “Throughout his life \[Sun Ra\] was consistent in his opposition to war and his art reflected this, perhaps most sharply in the space chant ‘Nuclear War.’ ‘It’s a motherfucker, don’t you know,’ Sun Ra and trombonist Tyrone Hill \[joined by June Tyson\] sing over a deceptively sparkly chromatic piano line played at a steady walking rhythm. It is worth noting that this spicy chunk of language is the only use of profanity that this author is aware of in Sonny’s vast recorded song repertory.”

First ever LP & CD reissues of this iconic album!