There’s really only one pertinent question, given the context: is the Dogon tribe of Mali willing to reward world-renowned producer, composer, and arranger Craig Leon’s consistent musical homages by offering him a lifetime royal position of some sort?
Granted, he has spent the last couple of decades culminating his career in the somewhat incongruously fancy arena of classical music; but around the time that he was discovering now-indispensable punk acts like Suicide, Blondie, and The Ramones, the productive prodigy (who’s originally from Fort Myers, FL) released his debut album Nommos on John Fahey’s Takoma Records. That 1981 release, alongside its Visiting sequel, were explicitly inspired by art of the Dogon tribe, as well as the tribe’s philosophy. Something about “elongated” angels/aliens visiting the Dogon and teaching them their way of life thousands of years ago.
Leon was theorizing about the extraterrestrial music that was being beamed down as well, and somewhat surprisingly, the England-based ex-pat recently sought (possibly because of those recent reissues) to revisit his Dogon inspirations.
Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 2: The Canon is available May 10 courtesy of RVNG Intl., and if the track “Standing Crosswise In The Square” is any indication, it’s never been more palatable to abandon Abrahamic religion and present oneself for any needless probing. The creationist vision for the aforementioned track, animated and directed by Milton Melvin Croissant III, is view-able down below. The full album can be pre-ordered here.
Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 2: The Canon tracklisting:
01. The Earliest Trace
02. Standing Crosswise In The Square
03. The Respondent In Dispute
04. Four Floods Of The Point
05. The Twenty Second Step As Well As The Tenth
06. The Gates Made Plain
07. Departure
More about: Craig Leon
