Laraaji
Sun Gong
Release Date: Sep 8, 2017
Genre(s): Electronic, Experimental, Ambient, Avant-Garde, Experimental Electronic
Record label: All Saints
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Album Review: Sun Gong by Laraaji
Fairly Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
Asonic 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.
Based on rating 7.3/10
Laraaji has spent the past 40 years trying to ease the world’s stress. He creates soothing ambient music, and across several releases, Laraaji’s done his best to make you forget he’s even there. For his splendid new pair of releases, Sun Gong and Bring on the Sun, the new age musician and foremost purveyor of laughter meditation compiles another reflective set, full of the drifting ambience and life affirmations you’d expect from Laraaji..
Based on rating 3/10
Reviewing the work of Laraaji Nadabrahmananda raises a difficult question: Had Brian Eno not discovered him performing his pawn-shop zither in Washington Square Park in 1978, would he have anything near the audience he has today? Two new releases scheduled for this month suggest not. The first, Sun Gong, out September 8, includes two pieces that total just 27 minutes. Lovers of mysticism-charged ambient recordings will find some value here; there are enough drawn-out gongs and running water sounds here to bring solace to the frazzled ….
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