ESS is excited to bring to you our first set from the Creative Audio Archive's Artist Mixtape Series... The first mix comes from Lia Kohl!

From Lia ...

This playlist is organized around unlabelled tapes in the Sun Ra archive. In addition to many rehearsal, performance, and lecture recordings, there are a few tapes in the archive that aren't easily categorizable -- a collection of recordings of a voicemail machine, or a series of short synth improvisations, for example. I have a special love of uncategorizable things, so I gravitated towards these tapes particularly, including selections from the aforementioned two, as well as a tape that seems to be Ra tuning through the radio and occasionally singing along. The voicemail tape is actually recordings of voicemails left for Alton Abraham, Sun Ra's manager and good friend. I love the refrain of his most frequent caller -- "Ham pick up, pick up Ham" -- and the drama that unfolds with so little context. I'm drawn to the synth recordings because Ra seems to be truly experimenting: stopping and starting at places before finding a new pattern. I love to think of this larger-than-life man having a quiet moment in the studio by himself. On side A of the "radio poem" tape, you can hear Ra improvising words over the radio, but on side B (which I've included almost in its entirety), he only occasionally sings along. Instead of feeling like a piece, it just feels like we're listening to the radio together. The only edit I made in that recording is to cut short Hotel California -- even if Sun Ra wants to listen to that, I don't.


I also included some selections from the Malachi Ritscher collection: Mamadou Diabate Ensemble at Eli's Cheesecake World (this place still exists!), Rob Mazurek with an ensemble in 2005, and Milford Graves at the Empty Bottle. I love the aliveness of these recordings: that we can hear Graves running around the space with a whistle and some bells, people whooping as he passes; that the Diabate Ensemble's incredible playing is punctuated by children crying. Music is in space and time and real people are listening, then and now. 


In a similar vein: ESS recently uncovered a tape of Fela Kuti live at the Riviera, which I've included a few cuts of. It's really cool to hear Kuti live, but somehow equally wonderful to hear the unknown recordist offering a light to a friend. Which is to say that these recordings remind me that music is something that happens between people, and this playlist is about celebrating that. 


(each track is bookended by a voicemail)


00:28 - Mamadou Diabate Ensemble live at Eli's Cheesecake World

07:04 - Fela Kuti live at the Riviera

10:23 - Unlabelled tape from the Sun Ra Collection (synth improvisation)

14:13 - EMI Vol.3 (Hal Rammel Collection)

18:24 - Mamadou Diabate Ensemble at Eli's Cheesecake World

27:44 - Milford Graves live at the Empty Bottle (1999)

31:49 - EMI Vol.3 (Hal Rammel Collection)

37:12 - Rob Mazurek Ensemble (2005)

41:26 - EMI Vol.3 (Hal Rammel Collection)

48:06 - Unlabelled tape from the Sun Ra Collection (synth improvisation)

53:13 - Mamadou Diabate Ensemble live at Eli's Cheesecake World

1:01 - Unlabelled tape from the Sun Ra Collection (synth improvisation)

1:05 - Fela Kuti live at the Riviera

1:09 - Rob Mazurek Ensemble (2005)

1:17 - Sun Ra Radio Poems

1:24 - Sun Ra Radio Poems

1:27 - Sun Ra Radio Poems

Lia Kohl / ESS CAA Mixtape Series 001

Experimental Sound Studio