Half a century into his career, Laraaji is still passing milestones. This year, he toured for the 45th anniversary of Ambient 4: Day of Radiance, his album produced as part of Brian Eno’s Ambient series. More to the point, he helped Ambient Church expand into Baltimore. Event organizer Brian Sweeny founded Ambient Church nine years ago in New York. As part of the concert series, Sweeny helps to book a church as a performance space for New Age musicians. For Ambient Chruch’s first event in Baltimore, Sweeny booked Lovely Lane Methodist Church on November 30, which happened to be a Sunday. This event might sound odd, but it’s not the only one of its kind. Ambient Church has invited comparisons to Age of Reflections, another concert series.
“They’re very similar. Their approach is: Find a church with an interesting inner facade, and have a very innovative light projectionist, and an ambient artist,” Laraaji told me earlier this month. “They’re very busy producing people like Steve Roach and Suzanne Cianni in New York and around the United States.”
Ambient Church is in good company. It’s also popular. At last month’s event, I arrived a half hour before the scheduled showtime, and was still waiting in a line long enough to turn the corner of the block. Before the show, Sweeny took the microphone to congratulate Laraaji on selling out the venue. Sweeny didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
From the look of it, the organizers filled nearly every one of the church’s upholstered armchairs. They projected a light show onto the church’s organ pipes, and mic’d the musicians so well that I didn’t need earplugs. A few minutes after 8:00, Laraaji began playing alongside his longtime collaborator, the multi-instrumentalist Arji OceAnanda. Laraaji led with his strange side. He plucked a zither, hammered a dulcimer, and played some field recordings. Laraaji encouraged the audience to speak in tongues. “Feeling improvisation, feeling language, all together now,” he chanted at one point. “Vumm vumm vumm.”
Laraaji might sound like a cult leader, but he showed a sense of humor about it. He laughed onstage when vamping about “the law of okey-dokeyness,” and the audience laughed along.
Still, some audience members seemed restless. About 75 minutes into his set, Laraaji stopped playing the zither to find a spot at the piano. Several left during this pause, even after paying $25 for their tickets. “I’m glad it ended when it did. It could’ve been a three-hour concert,” television producer Donald Thoms told me after the event. “I’ve never heard this kind of music… I’ve been in the business for a long time, and I’ve never heard it. I can appreciate what they’re doing. I don’t quite understand all of it, but they’re very talented.”
Laraaji played for 90 minutes, longer than usual. “It’s usually 60 to 70 minutes, but the audience seemed to invite more,” he told me. For the last 15 minutes, Laraaji sat unaccompanied at the piano. He favored D chords that sounded like D chords. He played a modulating, three-note melody memorable enough for me to hum.
Even during his most outré moments, Laraaji remained more interested in music than soundplay. Instead of droning continuously, he favored chunks of sound recognizable as songs (or, at least, recognizable as movements).
Laraaji has always contained these two sides. During the vinyl era, he pursued a different interest on each side of his LPs. On side one of Day of Radiance, he put the “dance” tracks, full of minimal, repetitive melodies. On side two, he put the “meditations,” soundplay drifting in and out. Laraaji wasn’t the first musician to put his quieter tracks on the B side of his album, but even after 45 years, he’d passing new milestones by committing to this same course.
Ambient Church hasn’t announced any future events in Baltimore or anywhere else, but Laraaji’s staying busy. He called me from his residency at California’s Esalen Institute. He also sang on the soundtrack to Marty Supreme, a $60 million film scheduled for a Christmas release. Plus, he mentioned doing some session work for the record producer Carlos Niño.
Even during the middle of his tour, Laraaji is planning his next one. He anticipates playing in a church again soon. “I’ve done three, four, or five concerts with them,” Laraaji said of the Reflections concert series. “The chances are that I’ll be doing more in 2026.”