The first record I want to mention this week is by a group called The Akasha Ensemble. It’s called All Shapes Derive From the Square, and it comes with quite the backstory. According to the blurb on Bandcamp, the tape was discovered in the attic of a retired collector/sound engineer in the Bay Area, where it apparently had been mouldering for the past 50 or so years. The anonymous collector “played the tape on his aging Studer deck and was immediately captivated.” (No mention of baking the tape first, or undertaking any other preservation techniques.)
Other than a handwritten note identifying the players as The Akasha Ensemble, the collector had nothing to go by besides the music. But he supposedly traced the band back to NYC in the early 70s, and possibly pinpointed the recording to a studio in Brooklyn in 1974. Now, I have to say that my spider sense is tingling when I read this story. There is basically nothing on the internet about this group, or its mysterious leader Nadira, other than this article and a few other pieces that point back to it. Not that I’m an expert or conversant with everything that’s ever happened in music, but I’ve never heard anyone mention this group, ever.
Regardless of the story, though, what counts is the music. And this is some really timeless spiritual jazz, yearning saxes, tight, chanting harmonies, a harp, really everything you want in an LP of this genre. Has the space-time continuum been breached to bring this to our ears? It doesn’t really matter, does it?
sounds of the sea 