Sun Ra - A Fireside Chat With Lucifer [Sky Blue]

Sun Ra recorded plenty of strange and wonderful albums, but A Fireside Chat With Lucifer might be his most pointed, and this reissue arrives on sky blue vinyl.

First issued in 1983 on his own Saturn imprint, it comes from a period when the Arkestra was still a working big band touring the world and Ra was releasing records faster than anyone could file them. Cold War anxiety was in the air, and the album opens with a song that addresses it with startling bluntness.

Nuclear War is the famous one, a slow, swaying chant that pairs a deceptively relaxed groove with lyrics that pull no punches, sung by Ra and the band like a call-and-response warning from another planet. Retrospect and Makeup follow in a gentler, more lyrical mood, a reminder of how deeply Ra loved the big band tradition he came from. Then the title piece A Fireside Chat With Lucifer takes over the entire second side, an extended, slowly unfolding piece of drifting horns, keyboard textures and eerie space that rewards patient listening.

Part protest record, part cosmic seance, it captures the Arkestra at its most unpredictable. For Ra collectors, the sky blue pressing feels fitting for music that always seemed to be beamed in from somewhere far above.