Chicago-based avant jazz musician and composer
Rob Mazurek has produced his most cosmic, interplanetary work with
the Exploding Star Orchestra, working with a rotating assembly featuring regular collaborators from his other ensembles such as
Chicago Underground and
Sao Paulo Underground to create his most science fiction-themed,
Sun Ra-inspired compositions.
Galactic Parables, Vol. 1, commissioned by the Sant'Anna Arresi Jazz Festival in Sardinia, Italy in 2013, is
the Orchestra's most ambitious undertaking yet. Expanding on
Sixty-Three Moons of Jupiter, their 2009 collaboration with
Roscoe Mitchell,
Galactic Parables features freewheeling improvisations for multiple percussion instruments, electronics, guitars, horns, and
Mazurek's expressive cornet playing. The lengthy pieces are guided by striking poetry spoken by regular collaborator
Damon Locks, whose intense, paranoid proclamations address subjects including slavery, ghosts, and the awakening of the world.
Locks' vocals are often electronically manipulated and distorted, and are even mixed with samples of the unmistakable voice of
Sun Ra himself, who inquires "Are you spotless? I have spots" occasionally throughout the first disc, a recording of the work's Sardinia premiere. The second disc of this release contains the same compositions recorded live at the Chicago Cultural Center, and the order and lengths of the compositions are rearranged, befitting the improvisatory nature of the work. The Chicago performance slightly tones down the abrasiveness of the Italian one, placing less emphasis on electronics, but still letting the work's powerful message shine through, particularly on the 22-minute "Make Way to the City" and the guitar shredding of "The Arc of Slavery #72."
Galactic Parables, Vol. 1 is an astonishing, visionary work, and continues to document
Mazurek at a creative peak, directly following
Cuneiform's 2014 release of the utterly transcendent
Return the Tides,
Mazurek's deeply moving tribute to his departed mother recorded with ensemble
Black Cube SP. ~ Paul Simpson
