Red Hot Organization News

Individually, Kronos Quartet and Sun Ra are two of the most groundbreaking names in contemporary music. The former is the legendary San Francisco-based string quartet that laid a blueprint for what concert music could become, working with the likes of John Cage, Tanya Tagaq, and Astor Piazzolla. The latter was a singular jazz and avant-garde bandleader, as well as a philosopher and poet, who honed an extraordinary strain of cosmic experimental music from the 1950s until his ascension in 1993. As a capstone to Kronos Quartet’s 50th anniversary, the group has joined forces with the Red Hot Organization for the new album Outer Spaceways Incorporated: Kronos Quartet & Friends Meet Sun Ra. It’s stacked with some of the most innovative artists active today — everyone from multidimensional electronic musician Jlin, to Moor Mother and DJ Haram’s radical noise / rap project 700 Bliss, to abstract hip hop luminaries Armand Hammer, to avant-garde hero Laurie Anderson, to minimalist pioneer Terry Riley.

The first project in this exciting new series, Red Hot & Ra – Nuclear War LP, is an album of political and social commentary, stemming from the incomparable Sun Ra track “Nuclear War”. Sun Ra’s 1982 track “Nuclear War” is an intense and potent call to action against the use of nuclear weapons and the potential for their use to inflict global destruction. The track is a stark reminder of the consequences of human carelessness and ignorance and the potential for our own demise. Originally written in response to the Three Miles Island incident in Pennsylvania in 1979, close to where The Arkestra was living at the time, in Philadelphia. The song may have been written in reaction to a very specific incident, but its relevance only grows.

SOLAR: Sun Ra In Brasil is a Brazilian celebration of the music of Sun Ra. The album was recorded in 2022 in Bahia and São Paulo, Brazil, and highlights incredible talent in Jazz, Avant-Pop, Rap and poetry. It includes such Brazilian forward-thinking artists such as Metá Metá, Edgar, Xênia França, Tiganá Santana, Max De Castro, Hamilton de Holanda, as well as 3x Grammy nominated vocalist Jazzmeia Horn and world renown musician and songwriter Meshell Ndgeocello.