But, it does posit an after the end, meaning not just the end itself, or the end as final and complete, but perhaps as a beginning of something new: an afterlife or a new world, even. It’s After the End of World is thus, at first glance, an anomaly in Sun Ra’s catalogue in the sense that it is dystopian rather than utopian, indicating that the world has already ended. As such, it is a way of imagining another world, and in the case of Sun Ra, an alternative to this world in outer space, on planets like Jupiter and Saturn, places and journeys constantly celebrated in his music. Sun Ra’s work, mainly records and concerts developing and defining the genre of free jazz, but which also encompasses poetry, graphics, science fiction, philosophy, and film, is nowadays viewed as constitutive of afrofuturism, imagining a speculative future for Africa beyond and without colonial intervention and violence-that is, the future that never came to be. The phrase is employed here as a short riposte to an opening question or prompt that speculates on the possibility of art after the end of the world. The song bursts with drums and electric guitar in the last minute and the sisters sing “All that I need” on repeat until the metaphorical car they're driving in glides into the sunset - perfectly encapsulating the end of a more subdued album from the duo that allowed them to create music to a larger bright and loving cinematic narrative.This essay borrows its title from a 1973 Sun Ra live album ( It’s After the End of the World, recorded in Germany in 1970). They close out “With Love From” with the stripped-back songs “Baby Lay Your Head Down” and “6 Months of Staring Into the Sun.” The latter is a five-minute ballad accompanied by a piano about a drive through California with a lover: “Boots on the dashboard, laughing at nothing/You’re all I need, but we’re running on empty.” Grounded in hearty acoustic guitars, sweeping drums and breathy vocals, the sisters sing from a place of confidence and self-assurance in one of the standout songs in the album, “Sunchoke”: “I’m on the run/I’m so mad at myself I could choke the sun/I feel the heat and it’s burning up the soles of my feet.” “I don’t care who you’ve been kissing/Cause I’ve been doing some kissing too/I just care that you get here," Aly & AJ sing. “Blue Dress” takes a softer approach with the sisters singing close to their mics crooning that they’ve been missing and dreaming of their lover. “After Hours” is a folk song the duo wrote about the idle time that comes with being up at the late hours during their transient musician's lifestyle. “With Love From" simply starts off with the country-infused track “Open to Something and That Something Is You.” The perfect song to serenade a lover, twinged with longing, desire and an open heart to love. The sisters sound stronger as they ever have as a duo as they let go of '80s style-synth production to let their voices breathe on the more stripped down, folksy Americana-inspired 11-track album. In the duo's album, “With Love From,” they demonstrate their ability to make their familiar indie-pop sound reminiscent of a time in music where rock stars delivered subdued confessionals - longing for love or coming alive staying up all night on a tour bus traveling across the country.
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