Space Is The Place: Gilles Peterson To Release Hand-Picked Collection Of Sun Ra Rarities

By now, Gilles Peterson's collection and curation skills should be common knowledge, perhaps best illustrated in Eilon Paz's extensive romp of crate-diggers the world over AKA Dust & Grooves. If you happened to indulge in that massive exploration, Peterson's musical expertise should strike you as the subversive sort, unveiling gems you didn't know you were looking for from artists you didn't even know existed. But one of his particularly scholar-like endeavors has been compiling the great afro-futurist Sun Ra's many incarnations, spiritual, musical and otherwise in his personal (and quite heroic) archive. The fruits of that labor will soon be here for all to enjoy in the form of Gilles Peterson Presents Sun Ra And His Arkesta; a massive, cosmic compilation of Sun Ra rarities from his ensemble, solo and quartet work, which should certainly feed your hunger for planet-jumping, dimension-diving jazz compositions from an incomparable talent and pioneer. No release date has been specified just yet, but you can expect to see the compilation arriving via Strut Records by year's end. Keep your eyes to the sky and your ears on us. We'll be back with the full scoop once details descend.

h/t Resident Advisor