HEAVEN by ARICA

Ambient cosmic jazz from 1973 - First ever vinyl reissue !

Heaven has it all…omming drones interchanged with upbeat percussion, acoustic and funky basslines intertwining the melodious threads. The album is full of deep meditational grooves meeting all kinds of polyrhythmic free jazz vibes, atonal keyboards and avant-garde soul-jazz sounds. The unhurried improvisations and subtle manipulation of musical tension make Heaven an immersive, psychedelic and spiritual masterpiece with a jazz sensibility in its overall structure. The superb use of the sitar and the hypnotic percussion gives it that great cosmic touch that reminds of Alice Coltrane’s work.

The whole album was recorded on a midsummer night in NYC…one hundred Arica members, musicians and dancers all gathered at the legendary Electric Lady Studio (home to Jimy Hendrix) and played until dawn. The names of the musicians involved were not given on the record sleeves, credited simply to ‘The Arica Musicians’. In a way, though, this mystery suits the remarkable music contained within these resultant grooves – timeless sounds that could have been conjured from and played by the very spirits of the Earth…all this accompanied by notes in the gatefold jacket to guide the listener through his sonic voyage.