4. Pharaoh SandersKarma
If this list was only five albums long, this would definitely be on there. It’s so incomparably good. I think spiritual jazz coming out of America in the late 60s and early 70s is my favourite music in the world. It has everything – big melodies, big production ideas, a heavy kind of rhythm, a really wide palette of sound, so you get that kaleidoscopic playground kind of feel because the texture is so dense and interesting… I guess it’s funny how much it shouldn’t connect with me because I’m an atheist, but so much of the music on this list is explicitly spiritual music. There was a Brian Eno Red Bull lecture, and Kieran was there and he asked him this very question: "Why is it that so much of my favourite music is spiritual music?" and Brian Eno’s answer was pretty good. It’s about that sense of release, disposing of your ego, and opening yourself up to be more receptive to different musical ideas. I don’t mean that you’re receiving some kind of spiritual energy – at least that’s not my take on it – I just mean you push aside considerations of ego and being cool, maybe that’s what it is. This record just seems elemental. It seems to have come from somewhere deep down and really says something about being human.
Music means so much to me, it’s so central to my life, and the music of Pharoah Sanders is so committed to the potential of music – what music can do, what it can say and how it can communicate with people. It’s in no way cynical. It’s inevitably going to resonate with me, because I believe in music so much.
