The Circling Sun hail from Tāmaki Makaurau (Aukland), New-Zealand, but their music, they go to lengths to extol, is of the cosmos! Orbits is a big-picture, lush follow up to their excellent, if more mellow, debut Spirits. They talk of channeling Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef and (of course) Pharoah Sanders and undoubtedly this is music that owes a huge debt to those progressive players. But this is also a contemporary music which is a mark above the cut and paste “spiritual jazz” efforts of some of their contemporaries. There’s a rich seam of Brazilian influence in here too and the use of a vocal choir (Love Affinity Choir) takes us to higher plain. Suspend any cynicism and travel the Orbits with The Circling Sun.
This is The Chosen One – our album of the week.