Resonance Theory | 03

"The All Of Everything" - Sun Ra And His Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra 

"The Human Abstract" - David Axelrod

"Street Lullaby (Herberts Gutter Dub)" - Two Banks of Four

"High" - Little Dragon

"Masterpiece" - Sault

"Gymnopedie Piano 1 Interludes (OffBeatz Trip Grimy Delight)" - Erik Satie

"Huit Octobre 1971" - Cortex

"Portrait of Tracy" - Jaco Pastorius

"Can It All Be So Simple" - El Michels Affair

"Back to the Streets" - Guts

"Late Night Groove" - Mark Dorricott

"Pink Lilies" - Arovane

"Spores" - Fila Brazillia

"Strong Downward" - Baby Mammoth

"The All Of Everything" - Sun Ra And His Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra 

It all begins with Sun Ra. Our opening track “The All of Everything” comes from The Night of the Purple Moon, a compact Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra album recorded in New York in early 1970, with Ra credited as writer and later archival notes listing him on the Rock-Si-Chord and Minimoog keys. The album is distinct in the Sun Ra discography with a stripped-down quartet built around electronic keyboards rather than the fuller sprawl of the Arkestra, giving this piece its measured pull. John Gilmore, so often heard on tenor, is mostly deployed on drums across the session, while Danny Davis’s flute gives “The All of Everything” much of its reflective center. The album’s afterlife has been strong for a once-obscure Saturn-family title, resurfacing through the Atavistic reissue, the Enterplanetary Koncepts archive program, and Gilles Peterson’s 2015 Strut compilation To Those of Earth... And Other Worlds, which helped place the track back into broader circulation. 

David Axelrod — “The Human Abstract”

“The Human Abstract” appears on David Axelrod’s 1969 Capitol album Songs of Experience, his second solo LP and a darker companion to Song of Innocence, with Axelrod credited as composer, arranger, and producer. Built from his interpretations of William Blake and recorded after the death of his son Scott, the album frames its themes of mortality and spirituality through a full Los Angeles orchestral setting grounded by Wrecking Crew players, with Don Randi part of the session picture as keyboardist and conductor. The record later returned through the 2018 Now-Again reissue cut from Axelrod’s original Capitol master tapes, and “The Human Abstract” gained another layer of cultural afterlife when DJ Shadow drew from it for “Midnight in a Perfect World,” helping push Axelrod’s Capitol-era work deeper into hip-hop and trip-hop canon.

Two Banks of Four — “Street Lullaby (Herberts Gutter Dub)”

“Street Lullaby (Herberts Gutter Dub)” sources Two Banks of Four’s 2000 Sirkus single “Street Lullaby,” issued on the band’s debut album City Watching as the closing “Street Lullaby, Pt. 1 / Lullaby (reprise),” before taking on a second life through City Watching Remixes in 2001 and Herbert’s 2002 Peacefrog set Secondhand Sounds: Herbert Remixes. The remix credits Herbert as producer and places Dani Siciliano on vocals alongside Phil Parnell on piano and Dave Green on bass. Paring the original down to vocals, piano, restrained strings, and Herbert’s programming, the remix converts the Banks of Four composition into one of the more memorable and ethereal after-hours reworks to come out of that early-2000s UK scene.

Little Dragon — “High”

“High” was released in 2017 as the lead single from Little Dragon’s fifth album Season High, with songwriting credited to Yukimi Nagano, Erik Bodin, Håkan Wirenstrand, and Fredrik Källgren Wallin. The track arrived after their Grammy-nominated Nabuma Rubberband and opened a new chapter for the Gothenburg based group, with Season High being the first Little Dragon album to bring outside producers. Vocalist Nagano framed the record around music’s ability to lift and transport the listener, and she rejected the pressure to conform to a more commercial mold. “High” set the bar early, further cemented by its Ossian Melin-directed video and a later official remix by Michael Uzowuru and Jeff Kleinman.

Sault — “Masterpiece”

“Masterpiece” appears on SAULT’s debut album 5, released on Forever Living Originals, with Inflo as producer. The record arrived with almost no conventional artist framing and quickly established the group’s method of withholding individual credits in favor of a collective identity, a choice that made the music travel on word of mouth rather the usual promo cycle. The strategy helped 5 land with unusual momentum in 2019, and “Masterpiece” became one of its most recognizable entries, later cited in coverage of Cleo Sol as an early moment when listeners encountered her voice inside SAULT’s deliberately obscured constellation.

Erik Satie — “Gymnopedie Piano 1 Interludes OffBeatz Trip Grimy Delight”

An unofficial 2014 SoundCloud piece “Gymnopedie Piano #1 Interludes (OffBeatz Trip) Grimy Delight” by DiggerOfTheUnknown is a brief rework of Erik Satie’s 1re Gymnopédie, the first part of the Gymnopédies cycle written in 1888. The track carries the historical charge of its source, since Satie’s Gymnopédies became foundational examples of spare harmonic language and later entered a cultural afterlife far exceeding the salon and recital world, helped along by Claude Debussy’s orchestration of two of the pieces. The first Gymnopédie has since been repeatedly covered, adapted, and sampled, including on Janet Jackson’s “Someone to Call My Lover.”

Cortex — “Huit Octobre 1971”

“Huit Octobre 1971” appears on Cortex’s 1975 debut album Troupeau Bleu, released in France on Disques Espérance. The track’s recording features Alain Mion on piano and vocals, Mireille Dalbray on vocals, Alain Gandolfi on drums and vocals, Alain Labib on alto saxophone, and Jean Grevet on bass. Recorded at Studio Damiens, Huit Octobre 1971 was named for Mion’s wedding anniversary with vocalist Mireille Dalbray. The album eventually became a durable source for hip-hop producers, with Passion of the Weiss describing Troupeau Bleu as foundational sample material with key uses in Jaylib’s “No Games” and MF DOOM’s “One Beer.” DJs and collectors eventually helped pull Cortex back into international circulation and touring. The album also returned through a series of licensed reissues, including Underdog and later Trad Vibe editions, with current anniversary pressings described as official releases under license from Alain Mion.

Jaco Pastorius — “Portrait of Tracy”

“Portrait of Tracy” was released in 1976 on Jaco Pastorius’s self-titled debut album Jaco Pastorius, issued by Epic, and performed as an unaccompanied bass piece. The album was produced by Bobby Colomby after hearing Pastorius play in Fort Lauderdale, where he signed and brought him into the studio within a month. Pastorius’s extraordinary use of harmonics, and the piece’s later reputation has only grown, with Marcus Miller describing it as a work that remains musically overwhelming even after overcoming his initial disbelief that it was all played on bass. Its afterlife continued with SWV’s sampling of it on “Rain” and later covers by Kadhja Bonet and Yussef Dayes.

El Michels Affair — “Can It All Be So Simple”

“Can It All Be So Simple” appears on Enter The 37th Chamber, released by Fat Beats Records in 2009. The album features a full set of Wu-Tang Clan reinterpretations, and this recording is El Michels Affair’s version of Wu-Tang’s “Can It Be All So Simple,” recasting it with a stripped, heavy-lidded instrumental approach. The group is led by Leon Michels and producer-engineer Jeff Silverman, with a loose cast of players connected to Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, the Budos Band, and Antibalas, all working toward what Michels called “Cinematic Soul.”

Guts — “Back To The Streets”

“Back To The Streets” appeared on Pura Vida Club 2 (Exclusive Tracks), the limited Heavenly Sweetness release issued in 2016. It was a turning point for artist Fabrice Henry, aka Guts, who transitioned from classic sample-based beatmaker to band arranger. The track deliberately inverted his previous method, moving toward a process built more around live musicians, while shaping the sound of Alliance Ethnik and other French hip-hop acts into a catalog that kept widening through digging culture. Rudy Norman’s 1980 “Back to the Streets,” is the sample source that anchors the track and title.

Mark Dorricott — “Late Night Groove”

Dorricott is a UK-based keyboard player, composer, and producer from Shrewsbury whose “Late Night Groove” was released in 2013 as part of his self-issued album Night Drive, later returning on the 2016 digital collection Afterhours... The Night Drive album was released outside a traditional music label structure via Bandcamp, targeting downtempo, jazz, lounge, and late night audiences.

Arovane — “Pink Lilies”

Released on the City Centre Offices label, “Pink Lilies” appeared on Arovane’s 2004 album Lilies. The album credits Uwe Zahn as writer and producer, with Kazumi as vocalist, and mastering by Lupo at D&M. Zahn credits the track as being one of his most significant collaborations, recalling that Kazumi sent him a DAT tape from London in 2003 singing over one of his tracks, which led to studio work in Berlin and altered the way he approached production moving forward. Lilies was framed by Zahn as a record shaped by a trip to Japan and became his last album before a nine-year hiatus, leaving “Pink Lilies” as one of the moments where Arovane’s precise early-2000s language opened outward.

Fila Brazillia — “Spores”

“Spores” was released in 1999 as the closing track on Fila Brazillia’s seventh studio album A Touch Of Cloth, the first record Steve Cobby and David McSherry issued on their own Tritone label after leaving Pork Recordings. The album was produced as a relatively more uptempo entry in the duo’s catalog, yet the track endures as one of the duo’s quieter, more ambient statements. The group later singled out “Spores” as one of the “classic cuts” lifted from earlier LPs and EPs for their 2023 beatless retrospective. 

Baby Mammoth — “Strong Downward”

“Strong Downward” appears on Baby Mammoth’s 1999 album Swimming, released in the United Kingdom on Pork Recordings and credited to Mark Blissenden and Andrew Burdall, plus Robin Marrs (credited as Sheik) on membranophone. Baby Mammoth was one of the core acts in Pork’s Hull-centered scene, built by Dave Brennand and Steve Cobby around downtempo, chill-out, and beat driven tracks that drew from soul, jazz, funk, and hip-hop, with club overtones. Baby Mammoth was among the label’s most prolific late-1990s artists, specializing in earthy breaks and ambient atmospheres, and “Strong Downward” is one of their standout tracks, with its live percussion credit for Sheik on the track indicating the slightly more organic, player-led texture that runs through many parts of Swimming. An ideal closer for your evening.

Listen to: Resonance Theory | 01