The Creative Audio Archive (CAA) is a Chicago based center for the preservation and investigation of innovative and experimental sonic arts and music.

CAA is an initiative of the Experimental Sound Studio (ESS), formed in response to growing concerns over the general state of historical preservation of non-mainstream audio, in particular, recordings, print, and visual ephemera related to avant-garde and exploratory sound and music of the last five decades. Here audio engineer Todd Carter writes about their Sun Ra/El Saturn project, which digitized hundreds of audio tapes recorded by the iconoclastic composer and bandleader Sun Ra (1914-1993).

Sun Ra and His Arkestra, 1960. Original photo by Charles Shabacon. Image from University of Chicago

The majority of the Sun Ra/El Saturn collection tapes are 7.5" 1/2 track mono, a standard home recording, semi-pro format from 1950s through the 1970s. Many contain music or lectures that do not correspond to the label on the tape itself or on the reel box. There are numerous cassettes of rehearsals, concert recordings from the stage, studio control room conversations, meditations exercises, how-tos on ridding your home of evil spirits and using the magic key, and answering machine messages.

Many Sun Ra fans might suspect there would be occult leanings revealed in these tapes, but there is little evidence to support this. There is no backwards masking, hidden tracks or other methods that may be considered "occult recording techniques." No EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) or evidence of electromagnetic disturbances to the tape from another dimension.

Sun Ra's ideas on the occult were expressed in a mix of trickster language with mathematical and musical theories. 

"Some people say I'm of the occult or that I'm atheist. 8, atheist. This number 8 here. I'm something more than that. Those square time signatures."

Here is an example of an organized free composition utilizing musicians improvising in multiple uneven time signatures and multiple key signatures, grouped to express symmetry as evidence of intelligence in the universe: Galactic Unity Ensemble - Multihuman

Here's a recording of a live PA Mix utilizing serendipity and randomness, with a planned structure in quadraphonic listening setting. It uses a wide range of recordings from the archive, mixing 12 channels of sound through a quad listening system: Excerpt of Todd Carter's "Digital Black or Sun Ra pt. II" commissioned by Experimental Sound Studio as part of its series of Sun Ra/El Saturn Interpretive Commissions

Further Listening

Brian Harnetty - Star Face One

Sun Ra Archives Elsewhere

Alton Abraham Collection of Sun Ra 1822-2008, University of Chicago

Todd A. Carter is an audio engineer, producer, composer, and DJ member of Electroacoustic Improv Trip TV Pow. He hosts a weekly radio show on Tuesdays from 6:00-8:00PM (CST) at WLPN-LP 105.5 FM. Follow him @belairsound.