The Comet Is Coming

The Arc of The Comet Is Coming

The pivots — what forced The Comet Is Coming to reinvent.

1. 01

   The Total Refreshment Centre Birth

   The early sessions were fueled by the DIY grit of the Total Refreshment Centre in Dalston, where the band recorded their first two releases basically as live jams. You can hear the room in those recordings—the bleed between the drums and the sax and the cheap, warm saturation of the analog gear. It was a reaction against the clean, clinical jazz recordings coming out of the majors at the time. They were focused on the physical impact of the low end rather than the complexity of the chord changes.

2. 02

   The Impulse! Ascent

   Signing to Impulse! in 2019 forced a massive jump in production value, but instead of polishing the edges, they just made the textures weirder. Recording Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery allowed them to experiment with more expansive synth patches and spiritual jazz tropes without losing the punk-rock drive. The drums got tighter and the sax lines became more melodic, leaning into the legacy of the label while keeping one foot in the rave scene. It’s the sound of a band realizing they have the budget to be as strange as they want.

3. 03

   The Final Transmission

   Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam was the breaking point where the electronics finally started to swallow the acoustic elements whole. They moved into Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios and utilized heavy sequencing and processing that made the sax sound like a distorted square-wave synth. The tempos climbed and the structures got more repetitive, mirroring the intensity of their live shows which had become legendary for their sheer volume. It was the logical conclusion of the project—the point where the humans were finally replaced by the machines they were playing.

Influences

• Sun Ra — Shabaka Hutchings has consistently cited Ra's philosophy and cosmic Afro-futurism as the primary ideological engine for the group. You hear it in the track titles and the sprawling, space-themed narratives that define their entire aesthetic. It’s the spiritual blueprint for using jazz to escape the Earth.
• John Coltrane — The band signed to Impulse! specifically because of the label's history with Coltrane's late-period spiritual runs. Hutchings mirrors that overblown, screeching tenor tone on tracks like 'Summon the Fire.' It’s the sound of a player pushing the physical limits of the reed until it breaks.
• Can — Danalogue and Betamax have frequently pointed to the Jaki Liebezeit school of 'metronomic but funky' drumming as the core of their rhythm section. The relentless, motorik pulse on 'Space-Age Lullaby' is a direct descendant of the Ege Bamyasi sessions. They prioritize the groove over the fill every single time.
• Alice Coltrane — The heavy use of harp-like synth arpeggios and shimmering textures is a deliberate nod to Journey in Satchidananda. It provides the 'Deep Mystery' part of their sound, acting as the ambient glue between the aggressive drum breaks. They took her meditative drones and cranked them through a distortion pedal.
• Daphne Oram — The band’s obsession with early BBC Radiophonic Workshop techniques and analog tape manipulation is well-documented in their production notes. You hear it in the weird, wobbling oscillator sweeps and the raw, unpolished synth oscillators. They treat the studio like a laboratory for sonic accidents.