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For this album, Sun Ra collected an arsenal of exotic string instruments and handed them out to his Arkestra on the precept that Inchstrings could touch people in a special way.Inch That the Arkestrans didn't know how to play or tune these instruments was not beside the point-it was the point. Ra framed it Incha study in ignorance.Inch The result was primitive, yet sophisticated; brutal, yet highly sensitive. In his essay for this expanded edition of the 1967 Saturn LP, musician-curator David Toop calls Strange Strings Inchsaturated in mystery.InchFans of Sun Ra's Space Bop and genre-bending jazz were in for a shock with Strange Strings. Even in the eclectic and sometimes baffling Sun Ra catalog, Strange Strings is an outlier. It's primitive, it's sophisticated, but it's not a gradient of either. It's brutal, yet highly sensitive. Is it music, or just noise? Or noise as music? John Cage could not be reached for comment.Ra had accumulated an arsenal of exotic string instruments from curio shops and music stores. At his makeshift rehearsal/recording space (Sun Studio = Ra's apartment at 48 East 3rd Street), these artifacts were handed out to members of the Arkestra on the precept that Inchstrings could touch people in a special way.Inch That the Arkestrans didn't know how to play these instruments was not beside the point-it was the point. Ra termed it Incha study in ignorance.Inch To this unconventional Inchstring sectionInch he added a few sonic oddities, including a large piece of tempered sheet metal on which was chiseled the letter InchX.Inch The band's Inchspace vocalistInch Art Jenkins rounded out the ensemble.The original 1967 Saturn LP version of Strange Strings was monophonic, contained three tracks, and suffered distortion in the mastering (perhaps due to the high-decibel studio performance and excessive reverb). Yet some sessions were captured in stereo. A d
