Laraaji – Day of Radiance (1980)

By Rafi Mercer

There is a brightness to the very first note, a shimmer that feels as if sunlight has been caught on string. The sound is a zither, but transformed: struck, plucked, allowed to vibrate into metallic halos. Laraaji’s Day of Radiance is not a record of conventional melody or song; it is a document of light turned into sound. Released in 1980 as part of Brian Eno’s Ambient series, it stands apart from its companions. Where Eno’s Music for Airports and Budd’s Plateaux of Mirror float in hushed suspension, Laraaji’s work glows with rhythmic intensity. This is ambient music as radiance, not withdrawal.

Laraaji, born Edward Larry Gordon, had trained as a pianist and studied composition before discovering the autoharp. Electrifying and retuning it, he created an instrument both familiar and utterly new: a zither capable of cascading overtones, endless resonance, celestial shimmer. By the time Eno encountered him — reportedly busking with the instrument in Washington Square Park — Laraaji had already begun to explore its meditative potential. With Day of Radiance, Eno gave him a platform, and the result remains one of the most singular statements in ambient music.

The album is divided into two parts. Side one, The Dance #1–#3, is rhythmic, pulsing, almost hypnotic. Laraaji strikes the strings rapidly, creating patterns that shimmer and overlap. The effect is both ecstatic and serene: a waterfall of tones that seems to dance without moving, to move without changing. The repetition is not mechanical but organic, each strike slightly different, each overtone combining in new ways. It is music that resists counting yet feels precise, music that envelops the listener in a lattice of sound.

Side two, Meditation #1–#2, slows the pace dramatically. Here the zither is allowed to ring, its notes sustained into long trails of resonance. The mood shifts from ecstatic to contemplative. Where the first side radiates outward like sunlight, the second turns inward, glowing like embers. The contrast is crucial: Day of Radiance is not simply about brightness, but about the spectrum of light, from blinding dazzle to quiet warmth.

What makes the record remarkable is its physicality. Laraaji’s playing is not background texture; it is a bodily act, fingers striking strings with speed and force. You can hear the labour in the cascades, the tension in the rhythms. And yet the effect is transcendent. The physical becomes spiritual, the mechanical becomes radiant. This tension gives the music its power. It is grounded in touch, but it reaches beyond.

The album also redefines what ambient could mean. Too often ambient is equated with stillness, with sound that recedes into the background. Laraaji demonstrates that ambient can also be active, energising, filled with movement. His cascades do not demand attention, but they alter perception. Time feels elastic. Minutes stretch, contract, dissolve. The listener is drawn into flow, a state where rhythm becomes timeless.

Culturally, Day of Radiance has gained recognition as a foundational work of spiritual and meditative music. Long before “wellness” and “sound baths” entered popular vocabulary, Laraaji was creating music designed for presence, for altered states of consciousness, for what he himself often described as joy. Yet it is never saccharine or facile. The joy here is hard-won, grounded in repetition, in discipline, in devotion.

Listening today, the record has lost none of its glow. In fact, it feels contemporary in ways Eno could not have foreseen. Its marriage of repetition, overtones, and trance-like flow resonates with electronic minimalism, with new age, with drone, even with certain strains of techno. Yet unlike machine-driven genres, Day of Radiance never hides the hand of the player. Its humanity is audible in every strike of string.

On vinyl the effect is heightened. The warmth of analogue playback softens the brightness, blending overtones into a golden haze. The physical act of flipping the record between Dance and Meditation emphasises the shift in mode, from outward radiance to inward glow. It is less an album than a ritual, a cycle of energy that mirrors the day’s own passage from noon to dusk.

To describe Day of Radiance is inevitably to reach for metaphors of light: sunbeams, reflections, embers. But perhaps the truest description is simpler. It is music that makes a room feel more alive, more awake, more charged with presence. It asks little of the listener but gives much in return. Play it in the morning and the day feels brighter. Play it at night and the room feels warmer. It is not escape, but illumination.

Laraaji would go on to record prolifically, often with spiritual or meditative intent, becoming something of a cult figure. Yet Day of Radiance remains his defining work, the record where his unique voice found perfect form. It is at once specific — a zither, an hour of music — and universal, a sonic analogue for light itself. Few albums manage that alchemy.

In the end, Day of Radiance is not about airports, or mirrors, or places at all. It is about the simple fact that sound can glow, that vibration can carry warmth, that listening can itself be radiant.

Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.