Strange Worlds

Science is at long last within grasp of one of its "holy grails" – the location of an alien Earth. In the search for this intergalactic haven, astronomers have been shocked by the wide variety of planets around other nearby stars. Some are types of planets totally unknown before this past decade including monstrous gas giants, massive "water worlds", and hulking "super earths" three to five times more massive than our own planet. Scientists have discovered odd ways planets behave: one world is on a highly elliptical orbit, while some planets may have escaped their parent stars altogether, adrift in the murky lanes of the Milky Way.

Strut follow up their hugely successful Marshall Allen-curated ‘In The Orbit Of Ra’ compilation with a newly curated set from the immense 125 LP back catalogue of jazz maverick, DIY philosopher and self-professed member of an “angel race”, Sun Ra. ‘To Those Of Earth… And Other Worlds’ is a hand-picked selection from BBC 6Music DJ Gilles Peterson, long-time champion of Ra’s music and the UK’s leading tastemaker for jazz-based sounds. It serves as perhaps the best introduction yet to the music of Sun Ra for a whole new generation of converts.

Discoveries of new planets have revealed countless worlds much stranger than Earth. Some of these strange worlds don't have stars; others are made out of diamonds. Will we ever find a planet like Earth, or are these distant worlds stranger than fiction?

The collection, titled Gilles Peterson Presents Sun Ra And His Arkesta, features music from the cosmic jazz legend's various projects Sun Ra And His Arkestra, Sun Ra Quartet, etc—as well as some solo music. The tracklist is littered with previously unreleased tracks, including a live version of Sun Ra classic "Space Is The Place." The compilation will be available on vinyl and CD formats. Peterson has long been a fan of Sun Ra's iconic brand of jazz in a Playing Favourites feature from 2014 he described it as his "favourite music." For the CD version, Peterson picks personal favourites, classics and unreleased tracks and weaves them into a flowing piece across 2CDs, showcasing the incredible variety of Ra’s work. Alongside the familiar tones of ‘Love In Outer Space’, the modal classic ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and a heavy version of ‘We Travel The Spaceways’, he brings in the off-kilter 1950s doo-wop of ‘Dreaming’, a 45 given to him personally by the late John Peel, alongside an unreleased 1987 bossa take on ‘Astro Black’, the experimental dub ambience of ‘Adventure-Equation’ and the defiant anthem, ‘Blackman’.