Melvin Van Peebles, the filmmaker, musician, author behind the landmark movie ‘Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song’ and the trilogy of ‘Brer Soul’ albums he released in the 70s has teamed with the UK ensemble Heliocentrics to create an interplanetary space/love odyssey told in twelve chapters. For the Heliocentrics, “The Last Transmission” represents their third Now-Again album, following Out There in 2007 and “13 Degrees of Reality in 2013“.
»Van Peebles makes for the Heliocentrics’ ideal foil: he did graduate work in astronomy in Holland in the 1950s and maintains an avid interest in cosmology. The Heliocentrics, as their name conveys, draw inspiration from both the philosophic leanings of the likes of Stephen Hawkings and interstellar mysteries, like those surrounding the Malian Dogon tribe’s knowledge of the Sirius B star hundreds of years before it was discovered. Their music is as indebted to Sun Ra’s interstellar jazz as it is inspired by psychedelia’s spiritual expanse. »»
The Last Transmission, presented as a vocal album and an expanded instrumental selection on a bonus disc, can be taken as both the band’s interpretation of Van Peebles’ poem and a musical voyage inspired by Van Peebles’ vivid imagery. The band considers it their defining work, the result of more than a decade of playing and recording together. They’ve found a voice as a band, one that meshes with Van Peebles,’ as he weaves an intergalactic “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” «
Download: “Chapter 5 – The Cavern (Instrumental)”.
Purchase the album in all formats on Rappcats.