(Free Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz, Cuneiform) [WEB] Rob Mazurek & Exploding Star Orchestra - Galactic Parables Volume 1 (2CD) - 2015, FLAC (tracks), lossless

1 Free Agents of Sound [Sardegna, Italy]
2 Make Way To The City / The Arc Of Slavery #72 [Sardegna, Italy]
3 The Arc Of Slavery #72 (Part 2) [Sardegna, Italy]
4 Helmets of Our Poisonous Thoughts #16 / Awaken the World [Sardegna, Italy]
5 Collections of Time [Sardegna, Italy]

1 Free Agents Of Sound [Chicago, Illinois]
2 Collections Of Time [Chicago, Illinois]
3 Make Way To The City [Chicago, Illinois]
4 The Arc Of Slavery #72 [Chicago, Illinois]
5 Helmets Of Our Poisonous Thoughts #16 [Chicago, Illinois]
6 Awaken The World #41 [Chicago, Illinois]

Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra is built on challenging ground. Assembled from close to a dozen musicians so that they may travel the paths of the jazz cosmos previously mapped out by Sun Ra, “approachable” may be the last word that some listeners will apply to this ensemble. When you factor in Chicago cornetist Rob Mazurek’s larger ambitions, you have a genuine puzzle on your hands.
Galactic Parables: Volume 1 is a double album where the same program is performed in two different cities. The nature of the work is “an epic science fiction opera inspired by the writings of Samuel R. Delany and Stanisław Lem”, touching on themes like “an apocalyptic vision of alternate universes, machine reproduction run amuck, and the colonization of distant planets.” Sounds like a scary mess, doesn’t it? In practice though, Galactic Parables can be highly listenable and enticing to the lay listener if they can just treat it as a uniform wash of sound running over them. No, you don’t need to be a Lem scholar or a connoisseur of all things Ra. You just need a pair of ears and a brain that can fixate on the big picture, as if the Exploding Star Orchestra were one gigantic instrument. That is, after all, one of their strengths.
The first disc is a recording of a show in Sardegna, Italy, a gig that moved writer Amiri Baraka to admit that he was impressed with the Exploding Star Orchestra’s synthesis of the old with the new: “Very shocking, actually, to see how well they absorbed all of that Sun Ra influence and went on to do their own thing.” Paying homage to your elders while taking uncharted steps forward is a tricky thing to do, but Mazurek has stumbled upon the perfect vehicle for such a tightrope act with the Exploding Star Orchestra. Within this group, everything melts into everything else. The music of yesterday and the music of tomorrow are thoroughly stirred. The individual musicians step back from their spotlights and recede into the nebula of sound that drifts seemingly to its own whim. Spoken word passages don’t take up any more room in the mix than a snare drum or a cavaquinho.
Ticking off the names of Exploding Star Orchestra’s impressive roster seems beside the point since the music isn’t the least bit ego driven—but the musicians deserve mention. Nicole Mitchell is on the flute, Matthew Bauder handles reeds, Jeff Parker is on guitar and Angelica Sanchez plays the piano. Drummer Chad Taylor and bassist Matthew Lux hold down the unorthodox rhythms and Guilherme Ganado and Mauricio Takara take turns on various keyboards and samplers. Damon Locks delivers the spoken word passages which are convenient signposts for the start of another movement.
Disc two is the Exploding Star Orchestra playing the same set on their own turf, albeit with different track sequencing and segues. Considering the fact that it takes approximately one hour for the ensemble to perform the work, comparing their Sardegna performance to their Chicago performance feels like hair-splitting. It could be that the two performances just so happened to excel in different areas, prompting Mazurek to just go ahead and include both shows. This is all guesswork, mere speculations dwarfed by the presence of a compelling piece of music residing on a large scale. When the Exploding Star Orchestra comes in for a crash landing to the sound of Locks’s back-slapped voice booming “The Arch of Slavery” or “Make Way to the City”, the listener can sense something greater than himself/herself coming to roost. It’s not the kind of presence that makes one feel insignificant, but the kind that baldly broadcasts the power of big music. There’s nothing else quite like it. - John Garratt, popmatters.com

CD 1
Sardegna, Italy performance
Rob Mazurek - composition, direction, cornet, electronics
Damon Locks - text, voice, electronics
Angelica Sanchez - piano
Jeff Parker - guitar
John Herndon - drums
Chad Taylor - drums
Matthew Bauder - tenor saxophone, clarinet
Matthew Lux - bass guitar
Guilherme Granado - keyboard, samplers, synth, voice
Mauricio Takara - cavaquinho, electronics, percussion
Recorded live at the Sant’Anna Arresi Jazz Festival 2013 “Ai Confini tra Sardegna e Jazz” on August 28, 2013.
Broadcast live from Piazza del Nuraghe by Rai Radio3.
CD2
Chicago, Illinois performance
Rob Mazurek - composition, direction, cornet, electronics
Damon Locks - text, voice, electronics
Nicole Mitchell - flutes, voice
Angelica Sanchez - piano
Jeff Parker - guitar
John Herndon - drums
Matthew Bauder - tenor saxophone, clarinet
Matthew Lux - bass guitar
Recorded live at the Chicago Cultural Center on October 18, 2013 by Ken Christianson, assisted by Deundeun Cho.