World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane

Culled from cassettes recorded while Coltrane was living on an ashram in the ‘80s and ‘90s, World Spirituality Classics 1 represents the most intense and unusual work in the composer’s career. Led by whooshing synthesizer drones and Sanskrit-language chants, the tracks here feel less like music than collective meditation, charting a path from Coltrane’s youth in gospel choirs through the interstellar journeys of her jazz days to something startlingly new. Just try “Rama Rama” and see how she makes time disappear.