Laraaji

Random and bite-sized facts on all things from the mythical ambient guru that is Laraaji. Totally random but totally fascinating if you're into it. Do you know Laraaji now?

Laraaji
Born Edward Larry Gordon, Laraaji studied piano and composition on scholarship at Howard University, and even had a small role in Robert Downey Sr.'s controversial 1969 satire Putney Swope, before dedicating himself fully to music and meditation. 🎬🎹

Laraaji
In 1974, aiming to sell his guitar at a Greenwich Village pawn shop, Laraaji felt a sudden pull to trade it for an autoharp/zither in the window instead. He electrified it himself and began playing with wooden hammers, guitar picks, chopsticks and rubber bands — the exact instrument later heard by Brian Eno in Washington Square Park. 🎸🎹

Laraaji
Decades after his breakthrough with Eno, Laraaji remains genuinely active — in 2025 alone, he contributed zither and vocals to Big Thief's album Double Infinity, and played zither, percussion, mbira and kalimba on the soundtrack to the film Marty Supreme. 🎶🎬

Laraaji
In 2021, a broke college student named Jake Fischer bought a box of unlabelled acetate recordings on eBay for just $114 — recognising Laraaji's birth name, Edward Larry Gordon, he realised he'd stumbled onto entirely unheard early recordings. They became Segue to Infinity, a celebrated Numero Group box set that Pitchfork said should "definitively put a nail in the coffin" of the idea that Eno simply discovered a random street busker. 📀🕵️

Laraaji
Laraaji's debut album, Celestial Vibration (1978), consists of just two side-long tracks, each running 24 minutes, released under his birth name Edward Larry Gordon. It had almost no distribution at the time — sold through a small US relaxation-music outlet — years before Brian Eno ever heard him play. 🎹⏳

Before Brian Eno discovered Laraaji, Laraaji was already distributing his music himself. He made homemade cassette recordings in New York and gave them directly to people, including people attending yoga classes. His first vinyl album, Celestial Vibration, followed in 1978, but initially had only local distribution.

Celestial Vibration wasn't made on the familiar acoustic zither sound associated with Laraaji. He used an electric zither with an open tuning, combining hammered playing, open-hand washes and strumming with electronic treatment and kalimba.

Laraaji's encounter with Brian Eno came after he had been busking in Washington Square Park. Eno left a note in Laraaji's zither case inviting him to discuss a recording project. Laraaji contacted him the following day, and the two soon began work on Ambient 3: Day of Radiance.

Laraaji's music took a major turn after an unusual experience in 1974. He described hearing, in his imagination, what sounded like an enormous brass choir — a glorious, continuous stream of music that lasted several minutes. He regarded the experience as a profound shift in the direction of his music.

Ambient 3: Day of Radiance doesn't sound much like the stereotypical idea of ambient music. Laraaji himself acknowledged that the album was unusually intense compared with the tranquil stillness of many other records in Brian Eno's Ambient series. Its shimmering, rapidly played zither makes it one of the most distinctive entries in the series.

Laraaji's first vinyl album was released under his birth name, Edward Larry Gordon. Celestial Vibration was recorded in New York in 1978 or 1979 and became the first major recording in which he developed the electric zither vocabulary that would define much of his later work.

Laraaji didn't abandon comedy when he became known for meditative music. He later developed laughter workshops, combining laughter with meditation and encouraging people to use it as a way of changing their state of mind.