Laraaji - Sun Gong/Bring on the Sun

The Guardian 80

(All Saints Records)

A sonic explorer, mystical busker, standup comedian, laughter therapist and key figure in the history of ambient music, Edward Larry Gordon – aka Laraaji – returns, aged 73, with two albums. Sun Gong features two 13-minute drones produced purely with gong reverberations. Bring on the Sun is the more interesting release, one that sounds as if Laraaji has jumbled up 600 years of music from every part of the world – medieval plainsong, Javan gamelan, Hindustani classical music and so on – and arranged it into eight pieces of minimalism. Reborn in Virginia sees him talking about his slave ancestry over tabla, sarangi drones and those distinctive autoharp flourishes; Enthusiasm superimposes African thumb pianos over doomy church organs. Change sees him cheerfully intoning about the benefits of adaptation, over a joyously rudimentary guitar vamp. The whole song cycle is an immersive experience, one that shimmers and glistens and throbs in all the right places.