Where to start with Sun Ra
Start with Urnack — Angels and Demons at Play, 1965. That is the track sitting closest to the centre of all 53 Sun Ra tracks in Zubissou Sounds — a listening room of 15,847 tracks placed one at a time by hand, not an algorithm.
This page is not a discography and not a ranking. It describes exactly one thing: the 53 Sun Ra tracks that one person put in one room, and where they sit relative to each other. The starting point above is chosen by a rule you can check — of the 53 tracks, it is the one nearest the average position on the four knobs the room runs on, and where two sit equally close the one on a named record wins. Nothing here calls any record better than any other.
The dates here run from 1957 to 2026. They are the dates attached to the releases in this room rather than recording dates, so the later ones are likely reissues — but 69 years is still more than one version of the artist.
The tracks are filed across 4 genres, most often jazz, avant-garde and free jazz, so the room does not treat this as a single-shelf artist.
The energy knob swings 59 points across these tracks, the widest of the four — it is the axis this artist actually travels along in this room.
Three ways in
The one track, if you only play one
Urnack — Angels and Demons at Play, 1965. Of the 50 Sun Ra tracks here that have actually been listened to, this one sits closest to the average of them across the four knobs the room runs on. The other 3 arrived carrying the default for their genre, and averaging a placeholder in would move the centre towards nothing. It is the least surprising thing among the tracks that were read, which is what an entry point should be.
If you want the ambient end
The Cosmos — The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (vol. 1), 1965. The lowest energy reading of any Sun Ra track in the room (16 out of 100). This is as far towards ambient as the collection goes.
If you want the driving end
Space Is The Place — Space Is the Place, 1973. The highest energy reading here, at 75 out of 100 — a 59-point swing across the collection towards driving.
Where Sun Ra sits in the room
Zubissou Sounds does not have playlists or genres you click. It has knobs. Every track carries a position on each one, set by hand when the track was added, and you find music by setting the room to a state rather than by searching for a name. These are Sun Ra's average coordinates and the range they cover.
All four run 0–100. They are placed by a person, not derived from audio analysis or from any streaming service's feature data.
What is here, record by record
| Album | Year | Tracks |
|---|---|---|
| Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 | 12 |
| The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 | 11 |
| Jazz in Silhouette | 1959 | 7 |
| The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra | 1965 | 6 |
| Angels and Demons at Play | 1965 | 5 |
| Space Is the Place | 1973 | 4 |
| When Spaceships Appear | 2026 | 1 |
| Lanquidity | 1978 | 1 |
| Monorails and Satellites Vols. 1, 2 and 3 | — | 1 |
| The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (vol. 1) | 1965 | 1 |
| Haverford College, Jan. 25th, 1980 (Solo Rhodes Piano) | 2023 | 1 |
Every Sun Ra track in the room
| Track | Album | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Advice to Medics | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| Blues At Midnight | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| El Is a Sound of Joy | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| Hot Skillet Mama - Bonus Track | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| India | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| Kingdom of Not | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| Medicene for a Nightmare | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| Muck Muck - Bonus Track | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| Portrait of a Living Sky | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| Soft Talk | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| Sunology Part II | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| Super Blonde | Super-Sonic Jazz | 1957 |
| Ancient Aiethopia | Jazz in Silhouette | 1959 |
| Enlightenment | Jazz in Silhouette | 1959 |
| Horoscope | Jazz in Silhouette | 1959 |
| Hours After | Jazz in Silhouette | 1959 |
| Images | Jazz in Silhouette | 1959 |
| Saturn | Jazz in Silhouette | 1959 |
| Velvet | Jazz in Silhouette | 1959 |
| A Call For All Demons | Angels and Demons at Play | 1965 |
| Angels and Demons at Play | Angels and Demons at Play | 1965 |
| Medicine For A Nightmare | Angels and Demons at Play | 1965 |
| Tiny Pyramids | Angels and Demons at Play | 1965 |
| Urnack | Angels and Demons at Play | 1965 |
| Dancing in the Sun | The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra | 1965 |
| Heliocentric | The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra | 1965 |
| Nebulae | The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra | 1965 |
| Of Heavenly Things | The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra | 1965 |
| Other Worlds | The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra | 1965 |
| Outer Nothingness | The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra | 1965 |
| The Cosmos | The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (vol. 1) | 1965 |
| Africa | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| Aiethopia | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| Ankhnation - Stereo, Previously Unreleased | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| Black Sky and Blue Moon - Stereo, Previously Unreleased | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| Images in a Mirror - Stereo, Previously Unreleased | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| Nubia | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| Plutonian Nights | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| Spontaneous Simplicity - Stereo, Previously Unreleased | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| Star Time | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| The Lady with the Golden Stockings - a.k.a. The Golden Lady | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| Watusa - a.k.a. Watusi | The Nubians of Plutonia | 1966 |
| Discipline 33 | Space Is the Place | 1973 |
| Rocket Number Nine | Space Is the Place | 1973 |
| Sea Of Sound | Space Is the Place | 1973 |
| Space Is The Place | Space Is the Place | 1973 |
| Where Pathways Meet | Lanquidity | 1978 |
| Space Is The Place / Over The Rainbow - Medley | Haverford College, Jan. 25th, 1980 (Solo Rhodes Piano) | 2023 |
| Fate In A Pleasant Mood | When Spaceships Appear | 2026 |
| Space is the Place / Over the Rainbow | — | — |
| The All of Everything | — | — |
| The Order Of The Pharaonic Jesters | — | — |
| Easy Street | Monorails and Satellites Vols. 1, 2 and 3 | — |
Near neighbours in this room
These are the artists whose average knob position sits nearest to Sun Ra's in this room. It is a coordinate match, not a claim that they sound alike.
- Where to start with Medeski Martin & Wood — jazz, 15 tracks
- Where to start with Herbie Hancock — jazz, 16 tracks
- Where to start with Sidney Bechet — jazz, 18 tracks
What the open databases say
MusicBrainz lists Sun Ra as a solo artist, from Birmingham, the United States and born in 1914. Its contributors tag the artist jazz, avant-garde jazz, free jazz, free improvisation and electronic. These are the open database's facts, not mine — you can check them against the MusicBrainz entry.
Questions
How many Sun Ra tracks are in Zubissou Sounds?
There are 53, across 11 albums. 49 of them carry a date, running from 1957 to 2026. That is the whole of what this room holds — it is one person's collection, not a discography.
Is this a best-of, or a ranking?
No. Nothing here is ranked and no track is called better than another. The starting point is picked by arithmetic — the track closest to the centre of all the others on four measured axes — and the rule is printed above so you can disagree with it.
Where do the knob numbers come from?
They are set by hand, one track at a time, by the person who added the track. They are not audio analysis and not a Spotify feature. Mood, energy, density and the head/body balance each run 0 to 100. 50 of these 53 tracks have been read that way. The other 3 arrived with the default for their genre and nobody has listened to them yet, so they are left out of the centre, the ends and the spread quoted above.
Can I listen to these here?
Not yet from this page. Zubissou Sounds is in private beta — the room itself plays through Spotify, and 53 of these 53 tracks are matched to a Spotify ID and ready to play the moment you are in. The waitlist form is at the bottom of this page.