In this the centenary year of the Saturnian one’s birth, a mouth watering helping of 20 mainly infectiously groove-friendly Sun Ra pickings from the vaults chosen by Arkestra leader Marshall Allen, is set for release by dance label Strut in late-September.

More than a quarter century of music from Ra’s sprawling career is covered here on this double CD/vinyl issue with audio sound quality clean and crisp the tracks well sequenced, and there’s no annoying stop/start jumping about that a lot of scattergun compilations suffer from. There are also a number of unreleased tracks included as is the custom as a selling point with this kind of labour-of-love compilation, including an unheard Rome 1977 recording of ‘Trying to Put the Blame on Me’.

‘Plutonian Nights’, above, the Ra composed fifth track of the first of the two discs, is taken from the El Saturn Records LP The Nubians Of Plutonia recorded in Chicago at the tail end of the 1950s. You, too, can, once again, travel the spaceways.