12. Alice ColtraneEternity
Joyous music from the heart. Like Terry Riley, she exists as some kind of modern day saint in my mind. I could have chosen any of those first half a dozen or so classic records from her as they are all great but they are very much more of a crystallised sound than this one. I went for this in the end because it has so much colour going on, the instrumentation is so lush and the whole record is totally diverse, open-ended and free spirited but mostly because it has the most wonderful song ‘Om Supreme’ on it which I think is probably one of the most ecstatic and beautiful songs ever. I guess that a lot of musicians attempt to have some kind of transcendent aspect in the music and I am totally for it. I suppose that in some respects, it is exactly this transcendent quality that I look for first and foremost in a lot of music I listen to. It is very difficult to pull this off in a modern context though, especially when dealing with symbolism from other religious practices without it veering a bit into New Age territory, but with Alice Coltrane I just find it totally convincing. I can’t pretend to know much about Indian religious practices but listening to her music completely touches my heart and elevates me.
