Laraaji

Though the full scope of Laaraji’s vision didn’t become evident until a stream of reissues appeared in the 2010s, the multi-instrumentalist has been a fixture in ambient music since the ’70s. Laaraji was born Edward Larry Gordon in 1943 and spent his youth in New Jersey studying piano, violin, and voice. Living in New York by the ’70s, he played jazz fusion, embraced Eastern religion, and started creating drones with an electronic-treated zither. He adopted the name Laraaji (which means “beautiful, divine sun being”) around the time Brian Eno encountered him busking in 1979. His third album, 1980’s Eno-produced Ambient 3: Day of Radiance, is a celestial gem that deeply impacted the new age movement. In the ensuing decades, Laraaji released albums like 1984’s Vision Songs, Vol. 1 (reissued by Numero Group in 2018) and 1987’s Essence/Universe that were geared toward meditation groups and alternative-medicine practitioners. In 2011, Laraaji reached a new audience when he hooked up with the experimental duo Blues Control. Their collaboration, FRKWYS, Vol. 8, helped kick off a wave of underground musicians inspired by the very new age and ambient music the enchanted sage had originally innovated.