The new-age renaissance of the past few years has been especially beneficial to Edward Larry Gordon, who since 1980 has been better known to noise and new-age fans alike as Laraaji. Revived interest in the genre has led to an ongoing reassessment of his massive body of work. He’s played with Blues Control and Sun Araw, and his blissed-out explorations on zither and bells have even been the subject of remixes. In addition to touring the new-age conference circuit, Laraaji has made appearances at eclectic festivals like Big Ears and Moogfest, while many of his most prominent works have been reissued, from transcendent albums like Celestial Vibration and Essence/Universe to the Brian Eno-produced Ambient 3: Day of Radiance.
Leave it to Numero Group to find the outlier in Laraaji’s vast catalog: a set of aslant lyrical songs that only ever saw the light of day via a limited batch of self-released cassettes in 1984, when Laraaji had his public-access show on New York television. A few songs have been pruned from the original tape, but the set nevertheless reveals a rarely heard aspect of Laraaji, in which he improvises vocal takes in what the notes call “a bulk download—a visionary zap of vertical energy.” The songs spontaneously arose from social settings in the spiritual community, and they feel as loose and blousy as yoga pants.
Hindu chants bubble up and evolve at not too far a remove from the Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda ashram tapes from that same era that saw reissue last year, though the urgency and gospel-rooted sound of that set is replaced by something decidedly more informal here. Laraaji’s telltale zither is deployed to different ends. While on his more expansive albums, his open-tuned style conjures cumulus clouds and body-melting drifts, here he uses the instrument in much the same way that a folk singer does an acoustic guitar. It harks back to Laraaji’s earliest days in New York City, performing as a comedian and taking part in hootenannies in the Village and at venues like the Bitter End. On “Is This Clear?” his plainspoken style and open-tuned strumming brings to mind Richie Havens, while at other points, Laraaji’s singing isn’t all too far removed from that of Cat Stevens.
Whereas his instrumental works deliver bliss, songs like “I Can Only Bliss Out (F’Days)” make that quest overt, setting it to a slinky Casio drum machine. His chintzy keyboard riffs on “All of a Sudden” provide a steady pulse until the midway point of the song, where they begin to hiccup and blip like Mister Rogers’ trolley derailing. On Vision Songs, Laraaji isn’t as interested in songs or even singing so much as in delivering uplifting messages, which come across as new-age boilerplate (“We shall be released into pure light/And we shall be reborn again”), weird mindful details (“Brush your teeth like you got it right now”), and endearing if slightly awkward aphorisms (“Growth can change us and change can grow us/New can take us into the beyond”). There are brief glints of enlightenment to be heard here, but more often than not, Laraaji’s makeshift songs come across like daily affirmations as heard in a hotel lounge.
